Fall or Spring: Which Semester Reigns Supreme?

FALL:

Picture this — it’s hot. 

Although this brief illustration may sound like heaven given the current below-freezing temperatures, I caution anyone who recalls heat fondly. 

With heat comes shedding endless layers and waking up in a pool of sweat. Summer months are filled with a constant overabundance of damp stickiness — whether languishing on the couch, struggling over a stove or sluggishly heaving through humidity on a walk to Aldi. 

These summer days continue ceaselessly, amounting to nothing but burnt red skin and misery. When, suddenly, a reprieve comes  — a cool breeze. A lone pumpkin. The promise of rigorous discussion at the onset of a new school year and outfits aligned with your Gilmore Girls pinterest board. 

The feeling of running to your closet and breaking out your favorite knit is nearly indescribable — but American author F. Scott Fitzergald comes close. 

“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall,” Fitzgerald wrote in his seminal work “The Great Gatsby.” 

For no one is this quote more true than the student. 

Every fall semester ushers in boundless new opportunities. For the academically inclined, fall marks the auspicious beginning of invigorating coursework and ideas galore — a new academic calendar, teeming with the promise of a fruitful year ahead. 

Even those who dread early mornings over a Simpson Dining Hall omelette and late nights in front of a laptop can’t help but be charmed by the fall semester’s possibilities. 

Despite the effervescent air of excitement surrounding the school year’s beginning, the fall semester is sometimes viewed as spring’s cold older sister. These tree-huggers lament the fall’s chaos and cold weather — as if spring is any less frenzied and freezing. 
Not only are the months of the spring semester colder on average than those of the fall, according to the National Weather Service, but the hullabaloo of adjusting to a new academic year in the fall is replaced with the dread of applying to summer internships.

SPRING:

When I recall the first weeks of fall semester, I shudder. During this time everything from friend group dynamics, housing environments and school-related schedules are uncertain. 

It’s unparalleled chaos filled with questions.

Did Terry grow a burning hatred for me over summer break? Does Bobby have voodoo dolls for all his roommates? Will the Canadian Film Club meet more than twice a semester, or is it some kind of front for a covert government operation?

These questions haunt thousands of lost students at the beginning of fall semester. It’s easy to become overwhelmed with how much seems to change from one school year to the next. 

But this gray area of friends and interests largely disappears in the spring semester.

By the spring, you know who you are. 

With winter break being relatively short compared to summer, returning to school doesn’t feel like a freaky Friday situation where every event you attend or group you hang out with entails a masquerade from someone you aren’t. There’s no adjustment period of finding yourself again.

Just as students know themselves in the spring, they also know mostly what to expect from their environment.

In the fall, the weather is erratic. One day, it’s sunny and 60 degrees. The next morning, it’s the windiest day of the year. Four days later, there’s a good chance of snowfall. 

The winter sneaks up on a person like a pick pocketer. Suddenly it’s October, and my hoodie leaves me unequipped against the frosty wind, assaulting me from the pitch-black, ever-present darkness. 

I’ll walk to Damen for an afternoon burger and feel like a citizen of Reykjavik amid a polar night, or a peasant during one of the ten plagues of Egypt. It wouldn’t be surprising if Lake Michigan suddenly turned into blood.

Even though the climate is becoming more bizarre and unpredictable, at least in the spring students can expect the weather to warm as the semester progresses. Even through the cold days in March, students can take solace in knowing the warm sun is approaching.

Imagine the horrors of a fall semester final — exams with no respite, no pot of gold at the end of hardship, only an unyielding winter to follow.

After two grueling hours, your final exam is over. Your high hopes and hours of studying have dissolved into a last prayer for a C-. Yet the troubles aren’t over — you remember it’s December. Outside your testing location is a 4 p.m. darkness that mirrors your fading aspirations.

Instead of lazing in the sun, students slide through snow banks and try not to end up in the Wellness Center from slipping on ice.

The fall follows its namesake. It’s a descent into confusion. The spring is calm and marks the closing chapter of a beautiful school year. Think of peace and the second semester always comes to mind.