Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

The Downside of Summer

GRUPOJOLY.COM Despite what movies like "Adventureland" promise, not all dull jobs turn into something exciting.
GRUPOJOLY.COM
Despite what movies like “Adventureland” promise, not all dull jobs turn into something exciting.

We all dream of summer vacation. And in part, our ideas of what those long, free days will hold are shaped by the countless movies we’ve seen about the adventures that can happen in this wonderfully unpredictable time. From movies like “Adventureland” that promise us that even a dull holiday job can lead to amazing relationships to sci-fi thriller “Super 8,” which suggests we could discover some supernatural alien invasion, summers in movie world never seem to be without some enlightening experience or adventure. But what if our summer days simply cannot conjure something that exciting?

As college students, we are told that freshman year will be a new chapter in our lives. For those who found that high school was their kingdom, they were able to leave behind an abundant social life that awaits reunion come summer time.

For others, like myself, there was no great schism to undergo after graduation. High school was just rather uneventfully average. Thus, high expectations were placed upon the college experience.

Regardless of what background a student enters freshman year with, he or she is almost certain to develop a social group from the start. At a school like Georgetown, with programs such as New Student Orientation and floors like mine it is near impossible not to make friends.

And so, before you know it, your life gets completely turned upside down. Now you live in earshot of hundreds of guys and girls your age, plans with friends seem to effortlessly come to be and everywhere you look there is someone new you haven’t met yet. For some, the new normal is just slightly different from the old one, while for myself it all seemed entirely new. Nothing has proven that quicker to me than the return home.

Rewind to the middle of finals week. I have now taken up residence in Lau, become completely reliant upon coffee and am counting the days until summer is here. Summer! No more papers, no more dining hall and finally a warm, pressurized shower without flip-flops. Picture the scene in “Grease” where they all throw their papers out of the window as the final bell rings: Freedom couldn’t have come soon enough.

However, I became so excited to be rid of those things, which in retrospect were minor inconveniences at most, that I forgot what else I would be leaving behind and more importantly, what I would be returning to: relationships.

A couple minutes on campus and one will realize just how diverse Georgetown is. Its diversity is a tremendous accomplishment, and it makes us who we are. However, when summer arrives students return to every corner of the globe, hundreds and thousands of miles away from their friends. Visits might happen at some point, but weeks on end of late-night shenanigans become a thing of the past.

For some of us, a summer job, internship or vacation with the family were all that awaited. It was at that time that I began to appreciate the epic adventure that is college life. Yes the papers are long, the classes early and the showers disgusting, but all of that pales in comparison to the memories made and friendships kindled.

The saying “you don’t know what you have until its gone” rings true here once again. Summer is indeed a time of relaxation and tranquility that is needed and should be appreciated because surely this will be one of my last without a full-time internship. With that being said, I cannot wait to return to school. This may seem shockingly strange, but the more people I talk to at work and over social media, the more I realize that I am not alone in my desire to return to college.

Of course, a return to college will mean a return to studying, the late nights and early classes, which will undoubtedly be met with a reminiscing of the summer days of sleeping late into the afternoon.

However, a return to college also means a return to the friends, the late nights, the city of Washington, D.C., the memories and, most importantly, the relationships. A return I can hardly wait for.

Justin Kotwicki is a rising sophomore in the College. Getting Talks appears every other Wednesday at thehoya.com.

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