Keep Yourself Busy During Winter Break

After a grueling semester of papers, exams, no sleep, and a wicked finals schedule, winter break seems like the optimum opportunity for plopping on your parents’ couch to veg for a month straight. But after a few days of 15-hour sleep sessions, you might start to feel a little bored, and even reunions with high school friends and Christmas parties aren’t going to be enough to cure your listlessness. You might even find yourself tempted to return to school early, checking for updates about your new classes or wanting to organize your dorm room. But a winter break spent at home doesn’t have to mean boredom and wasted time. Here are some things you can do to keep yourself busy and productive, while still finding time to relax.

Go on informational interviews: Milk your parents’ contacts and friends, and go on casual informational interviews to learn about particular careers and job positions. You’ll learn what it’s really like to work in the industry, and you should also get some good ideas on planning out your own career path. Ask to shadow a family friend for a day or even just an afternoon to get a taste for the day-to-day routines of working professionals.Learn a new skill you can take back to campus with you: Practice cooking one-dish meals, take on light sewing projects, or work on your photography skills if you’re looking to take pictures for the campus paper.Read for fun: If you enjoy reading but can never pick up a book just for fun during the semester, winter break is a great time to indulge in a thick work of Russian fiction, or trashy chick lit if that’s your preference.Boost your resume through volunteering: While it’s certainly a valuable way to spend your time, if you have to focus on getting a part-time job and balancing school work during the semester, you may not have time to devote to volunteering. But volunteering is a huge asset to your resume, so use the extra time you have on winter break to support a cause — preferably doing work that’s related to your career goals or at least demonstrates initiative and leadership experience.

Did you enjoy this article?

This entry was posted on Friday, November 19th, 2010 at 2:59 pm and is filed under Campus Life, Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

View the original article here