See you in August
With the end of spring semester every year comes celebration as finals are over, the sun is out and students are free for the summer. However, beneath all of the “see you in august” promises and sappy Instagram posts remains a gloomier reality. The beginning of summer break also means the loss of community, and day-to-day life that college students spend all year creating.
For many students, the end of spring semester feels less like the beginning of a break and more like the bittersweet ending of one’s favorite book. As dorms empty seemingly overnight, friends fill their cars only to disappear, leaving students reminiscing over all the memories they made in one short year.
Somehow the routines that made campus feel like the world was small evaporate into thin air. All the things students take for granted, like late night study sessions, shared meals and spontaneous nights downtown, are left in the review mirror.
Students who go home for the summer face a kind of whiplash, as they go from living surrounded by their closest friends and classmates, to sitting alone in childhood bedrooms they’ve long outgrown. The move home oftentimes feels like a step backwards, as the people once considered the closest are now states away, with only social media and group chats to bridge the miles between one another.
Similarly, the students left behind, the ones who chose to stay in their college towns instead of going home in order to pick up extra classes or work, are also forced to accept their new routines. As their once lively college towns now feel deserted, coffee shops close early and sidewalks once full of people stand empty. Staying behind can feel like being the last person awake at a sleepover, the party is long over yet you still remain, unsure of what to do with the silence.
I think what makes the seasonal disconnect so shocking is how little it is acknowledged by students and universities alike. USD invests so much energy throughout the academic year to ensure students have a strong sense of belonging through welcome weeks, student org fairs, themed events, etc. However, as soon as May arrives, that stability vanishes and students are expected to simply endure months without it.
For most students, community isn’t something that simply shuts off in the summer and turns back on as soon as they step back on campus, it’s the emotional backbone of their college experience. Losing it, even temporarily, can feel extremely destabilizing.
I think it’s time campus communities stop treating summer break as a harmless pause in students’ day-to-day lives and start acknowledging the emotional cost it carries.
If universities truly valued students’ well-being, they would think of ways to carry community engagement into the summer months by creating new programs and treating the social challenges summer brings.
The community students find on campus shouldn’t have to be boiled down to “see you in August,” it should instead span miles and months apart.
