I am sitting on my bed at 10:20 pm thinking about how much I miss college. I miss the learning, I miss my beautiful campus, and I miss my friends; I miss my Karla. There is so much about college that I love that I spend a majority of my time focused on how much I miss it. Then I realized that I am going into my sophomore year of college and that means that after this summer I only have two summer vacations left before I have summers filled completely with work. That thought is terrifying. I feel overwhelmed thinking about the endless options of what I could do over the summer, but I know that there are a few things that I need to do before summer ends.

1. Catching Up On Reading

I personally believe that reading is one of the best possible ways someone could spend their time. There are endless options besides books when it comes to reading. Although I prefer reading books reading can include magazines, blogs, news, fan fiction, etc. Reading in the summer months allows students to exercise their brains when they aren't doing their regular amount of school work. When I am at school I feel as if I have too much on my plate to read books for pleasure because I need to get all of my homework done. However, I believe I have been home for about a month now and I have read at least one book a week since being home and honestly it does not always feel like I have read enough.

2. Spend Time With Family

From personal experience, I know how hard it is to watch a sibling go away to college and then return home for summer and not really understand how important it is to spend time with your family. I know that you want to connect with old friends from home or even go visit the ones that you have grown so close to at school because you are growing as a person too and you want to keep these connections strong. But, you have to remember that your families are also going through a new experience of not having you at home all the time. It is a difficult adjustment for them too and soon it is very likely you're going to wish you could be at home spending time with family instead of being at your job. So make time for your family while you can.

3. RELAX (aka Sleep)

This is obviously one of the most important things to do over summer vacation. You are running out of opportunities to have a few months at a time to really relax so take advantage of it now! Make sure that even with all the crazy fun and excitement you are still making time for yourself because you are important.

4. Go See Old Friends!

Do not by any means feel obligated to go and hang out with people that you have bad memories with, but do not forget about the people you spent the last 13 years with! You would be surprised how nice it could be to catch up with some old friends and share new stories and experiences. If for no other reason, stay connected so you can use your connections in the future to help with your success!

5. Catch Up On Your Shows (Or Start New Ones)

NOW IS YOUR CHANCE! You are not pulling all-nighters doing homework or spending a majority of your day doing homework so catch up on all your favorite shows! Summer is the perfect opportunity to binge watch a season of your favorite show in one day because what else do you have to do?

6. Explore

Now is the perfect time to get out and adventure; whether that means going rock climbing, cliff diving, to the beach, hiking a mountain, visiting a new country, sky diving, to a lake, or even just taking a walk in the woods behind your house you should do it. Get out there and go see the world! Go learn new things that you cannot learn from a textbook. Do something that is important to you. You are going to definitely regret turning down an opportunity to explore when you could have tried something new.