Walking in a Babson Wonderland
The campus is caked in beautiful white snow after this weekend’s storm. It’s the perfect winter weather, not warm enough to melt the snow but not freezing enough to cause slips and falls on black ice (yes, I’ve been a victim). The campus is eerily quiet as pretty much all students have left for their winter breaks! Almost a month of pure relaxation – some students work, some students travel, some come back to campus for winter classes or for sports, and some will just hang out at home in couch potato mode (after a busy semester, that mode is usually needed to recoop).
Recoop from what, you may ask? Well, the last couple of weeks have been crazy ones…
EXAMS.
Grrrr exams… A necessary evil.
For me as a senior, I was lucky that most of my classes required take-home exams, final research papers, or final presentations – I personally do MUCH better when I can spend ridiculous amounts of time cranking out work and perfecting it at my own pace rather than sitting in a crowded, stressful gym or auditorium to complete an exam.
HOWEVER, regardless of the title “exam week”, our Office of Campus Life calls it something different:
STRESS RELIEF WEEK!
Various departments all over campus sponsor fun, relaxing events to cool us down as we’re all hyped up.
Most are Babson Traditions… and most involved LOTS of food.
Some of these events include:
– the annual Midnight Breakfast: one of the best events of the year!!! All students head down to trim at the beginning of Reading Days to be served by some of our favorite staff and faculty! Pancakes, waffles, sausages, fruit, muffins, and infamous hot chocolate, mmmm.
– Late night bingo: another classic tradition, and one that gets people VERY competitive to win some awesome prizes… VERY competitive…
– FREE MASSAGES: another tradition, sign ups start at 11 am that day and believe me, the time slots go fast!
– Tai Chi and Yoga in Glavin Chapel
– Espresso Dave: free lattes in Reynolds
– Religious celebrations: Christmas caroling and Chanukah celebrations
– the library is open 24 hours every day for 2 weeks and provide students with lots of snacks!
– and finally… MIDNIGHT PIZZA! Another great tradition. Our dean, Dean Hanno, orders hundreds of Domino’s pizzas and gives them all out while fighting off the crowd of exhausted, hungry students. We seriously act like cannibals fighting for slices or even boxes of pizzas and use the time to hang out in Reynolds for a nice study break. But it truly is one crazy sight, all of us fighting for pizza…. I hear that staff members come to this event JUST to watch us act like madmen…
All these events, and simply the huge support from Babson students, staff, and faculty alike while we make our final mark for our semesters, truly help us fiend through final exam time.
And see? I made it out alive 🙂
As a Happy Holidays wish, check out this wonderful holiday video card made by our fantastic Dean Hanno: