Christmas break as a college student is not what I thought it would be.
When you're in elementary, middle, and high school, Christmas break means no assignments, no work, no responsibilities (or almost none). You get 2-3 weeks to do anything you want, even if that's nothing at all.
But when you get to college, despite having almost a month off of school (which is totally awesome and very necessary), the option of being able to do nothing but watch movies and lay around is basically an illusion.
Laundry list of to-dos
Although I can't speak for other students pursuing different majors, me and my friends who are studying CS/CE are on the struggle bus. We've reached the point where we're texting each other leetcode questions.
Between leetcode reps, working on projects (like this personal site), and praying daily for an internship to give us a chance, even the idea of enjoying a day of break by just lounging around is riddled with guilt from not doing more!
It can be pretty discouraging just knowing how much work some people are putting in, and it's really easy to sink into a pit of despair and feel like there's nothing I can do to catch up. But that state of mind is completely unproductive and must be denied at every occurance! Especially by taking steps (even small ones) every day to improve my skills, get more experience, and feel a bit closer to 'catching up'.
Conclusion
Although I really enjoy learning and gaining experience as I work on projectsāeven over breakāpart of me wishes I could do it entirely out of pure curiosity and excitement to learn, rather than being influenced by the fear that I'm not doing enough. It's a mindset shift that I think I can achieve as long as I keep making these steps to get better at what I love to do.
Just to be clear, even though I was definitely feeling the weight of internship stress during this winter break, I made a ton of time to hang out with my family, watch bad 2000s TV shows, bake cookies, and visit friends before I go back to school. It feels oddly like trying to balance the future of being a working professional with no "winter break" and the past of being a kid, and no one ever said change was easy; and since I can't stop or slow the passing of time, I'm just excited to see what it has in store for me :)