By Kristen Shepard
Staff Writer
It is a pattern most students have become all too familiar with – the last few weeks of school are long and sluggish. Many students simply can’t find the motivation to keep up their work ethic and studying, and with summer around the corner, there are thirsty for a refreshing summer break.
But for many students, summer is hardly a break at all. A lot of my peers have spent the last few weeks, or even months, booking their summers by the week with camps and classes.
Over the past few months, my mailbox has been consistently stuffed with flyers advertising the best summer enrichment camps. Not only are these full color brochures enticing, they convince students that they are not valuable candidates for college unless they start early.
Most of these camps have a price tag of anywhere from $1,500 to $6,000, and last up to eight weeks. There goes your summer.
Let me clarify, I am in no way bashing anyone who wants to explore their interests in one of these courses. I simply do not think students should bend over backwards to get ahead in school over the summer.
It is called summer break for a reason. If your summer break is just as busy or even busier than your school year, maybe it is time for you to take a step back and reevaluate.
I am not advocating students spend their summer months perched on a couch watching “One Tree Hill” re-runs; I am simply recommending that students evaluate their plans to find a balance between what they love and what they should, could or can do to get ahead.
I credit a lot of this opinion to having watched the past senior classes part ways. Each year, as another phenomenal group of gifted and driven students walk across the stage at the University of North Texas Coliseum, I think about how in two years that will be me.
Once Principal Mike Jasso hands me my diploma, and I head off for whatever my future holds, I am going to lose contact with so many of the people I grew up with. School keeps us, as students, pretty busy, and summer is the time of year where things slow down and there is plenty of time to spend with the people you love. Take advantage of this.
I once heard what I consider a horror story of a very driven and motivated student, who told her family she could not go on vacation with them to Florida because she was taking an ACT prep workshop that same week.
Doing well on these standardized tests is important, but how important? Was this workshop really worth being left behind by the family for a week?
My theory is that motivation and drive doesn’t fade unless it is burnt out. Use summer as a chance to re-fuel and relax. The opportunity to take Spanish III will still be there in August, and you don’t necessarily need to swear your summer away to knock the course out.
Run to Sonic or watch a movie with your friends, and go on vacation with you family. The sentimental value of doing things like this almost always overpowers the value of placing out of a semester of physics.
This becomes significantly harder if you spend the majority of your summer at North Lake or on a college campus.
If you want it to be, summer can be full of opportunities and chances to make memories. Have a campfire, go out on the lake and celebrate the Fourth of July with your friends and family. And if you can fit an SAT prep workshop in, great.
