Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Snorkeling and scuba diving are on the agenda for Katie Carr and 14 of her friends this spring break.
Carr, Tecumseh senior, is driving to Florida before embarking on a five-day cruise from Port Canaveral. She and her friends will go to Nassau and Coco Cay in the Bahamas before her spring break ends. And when her trip ends, well, her spring breaks end — for good.
Carr and other members of the senior class are days away from experiencing their last spring break. Although spring breaks account for just one week of every spring semester for students, it is a week most students will miss when they begin their careers.
“It will be difficult,” Carr said. “Hopefully I’ll get it all out of my system. I have no idea — it’s going to be a shock.”
Next year Carr will move to the northwest coast of Australia to work for Schlumberger, an engineering company. She will work sometimes more than 120 hours every week on offshore drilling rigs to help make them more efficient and to find oil or gas. Carr interned at Schlumberger for the past two summers and knows from experience that she will enjoy her job — but she will miss vacations, she said.
“The main thing for me is vacationing with friends — since I’m moving overseas, I won’t see everyone for a long time,” Carr said. “I can’t vacation like I did in college. I can’t see everyone. I’ll have some time off, but no vacations with my best friends.”
Ann Hartley, University Career Center associate director, said she discussed the transition to the world of work in her job search strategies class. One of the issues the class focused on, she said, was the reality that her students would have less vacation time as professionals than they did as students.
“This is just the reality of the workplace, and you will have to adjust to it,” Hartley said. “I think everyone coming out of school and starting to work full-time goes through a period of adjustment to the work schedule. Many people are not used to having to be at work every day at 8 a.m.”
Hartley said she worked through college and never had time off for spring break. She said not having vacations as a professional was not a big adjustment for her and said it might not be for some students, either.
“Students who work off-campus jobs do not typically get a spring break from work, so it may not be much of an adjustment for them,” Hartley said.
Jarrod Morgenstern moved to New York City last August and works as an assistant account executive for MS&L, a communications firm. Morgenstern works between 45 to 55 hours every week and said it was “sobering” to decide when to take vacations. He said it would be most difficult working through the coming summer — his first as a full-time employee — with no break.
“It’s what adults do,” Morgenstern said. “You don’t have a fall break, a winter break, or a spring break, but you do get a paycheck, and that’s not that bad. It’s what life is. Everybody can do it — but it takes a bit of getting used to.”
Morgenstern remembers last year’s spring break, when he took a camping trip for a couple of days in Southeast Missouri. The year before that, he went to Chicago, where he watched the Jayhawks play in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
This year, Morgenstern is using part of his two weeks of vacation time to come back to Kansas and breathe the Midwestern air, he said.
“I’m getting a little mini-spring break,” Morgenstern said. “But the work is piling up while I’m gone, so it’s a little different.”
Carr said that although she would miss vacations like her spring break cruise, in this tough economy she is thankful just to have employment next year — vacations or not.
“Oh, I’m extremely grateful,” Carr said. “I’m grateful to even have a job anywhere. I have a job I absolutely love and I’m moving to an awesome place to do it. I’m definitely grateful.”
— — Edited by Chris Hickerson
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Comments
Spring breaks will end with graduation
Advice from the working world: Learn to enjoy your weekdays as much as your weekends. When you start working, don’t get in the habit of going home and watching one of the eight versions of CSI. Do Wednesday night sailing, join a kickball league, cook dinner with friends, have a beer at a favorite bar until 10, go to a college or semipro or high school sporting event (even if its not your school).
You will be miserable if you can’t enjoy your work week. There is no way to find the type of vacation time you had in college. Most people find it hard just to get a three day weekend right out of college. Don’t use the typical excuses that you are tired or there is nothing to do. If that’s your excuse, don’t complain about being miserable (and you will be). Everywhere has something to offer, get out and find it, and take advantage of it. You are going to be dead a long time.
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