Spring semester is starting, or has started, for about everyone, and it is time to give it the credit it deserves. Sure, fall semester may seem better on the surface, you have football, everything is new, and it culminates in Christmas. However, on deeper inspection, spring is the better semester for these four reasons.
Cold to Warm
About 99.5% of humans greatly despise the cold (I’m part of the 0.5%). Therefore, the progression of spring semester is much more enjoyable. Instead of leaves falling off trees about as fast as the temperature is falling, the temperature increases throughout the semester. This, to me, serves as a nice counterbalance to the progression of the semester because it gets nicer as the semester gets harder. When its 60 or 70 degrees, you might actually look forward to your walk to class, where as in November and December you are probably searching for any reason to skip class and that bitter walk to it.
Days Get Longer
Another plus of moving through spring semester is that the day actually gets longer! For me, this also makes the semester a bit more bearable. It definitely helps productivity because you won’t feel like its 10:00pm when it is really only like 5:00pm. For this reason, spring finals seem easier to study for compared to their fall counterpart.
Better Break
Thanksgiving break is nice and all, but it is about as horribly placed within the semester as one could do. Being so late in the semester makes fall semester really drag on, especially from weeks 9-13 or 14 when Thanksgiving break is. Then, you go on break for a full week, don’t do anything, and then come back to finals. It’s just terrible timing. Being that spring break isn’t tied to a holiday, it is placed in the most logical spot of the semester, right in the middle. It perfectly breaks up the long semester, and often breaks up the winter and spring like weather. Plus, unlike thanksgiving break, you get to go on a vacation during this break, and who doesn’t love vacation.
Better Sports
So this may be kind of an opinion thing, but in my opinion (I’m about always right by the way), there are better sports during the spring semester. Many people would be quick to cry out about football, when in fact there is football in the spring. We get the last couple of playoff rounds including the Super Bowl which is always a good reason to blow off homework on a Sunday. On top of that, we are gifted college basketball (sorry, nobody likes the NBA) and hockey. March Madness may be the greatest sporting event ever, and offers a great break right in the middle of the semester. Then at the end of the semester, we have the NHL Playoffs to carry us through finals and into the summer. Plus, without college football, you no longer have to tailgate every Saturday and instead can enjoy those mornings.