"I was going to go to Miami, but last week I decided I was going to go home instead," O'Bannon said. "I miss my mom and I kind of want a break before spring."
Many Dartmouth students share this sense of homesickness and exhaustion, according to O'Bannon.
"Friends at other schools are going on trips with their fraternities or sororities to places like Miami, Daytona, or Palm Beach," O'Bannon said. "I feel like here people are a lot more tired and there's not really a strong interest in going and raging for a week. I've done that the entire term."
Since the Dartmouth Plan can separate friends for several terms, orchestrating spring break plans with school friends can become difficult, according to Anna Dev '09. She added that the extensive traveling that the D-Plan decreases students' need for additional traveling during spring break.
"If you think about it in terms of the D-Plan, it's hard to coordinate one spring break trip if your friends are in Rome," Dev said. "I'm staying home with family in New York."
For some students life at Dartmouth is raucous enough and already resembles the revelry that students at other schools seek during their spring breaks.
"It's like a perpetual spring break at Dartmouth," Scott McKnight '11 said.
At other schools, many students plan spring break trips to exotic locales around the globe.
"My best friend is going to Mexico. Another one is going to the Bahamas. Another one is going to Barcelona. Last year one of my friends went to Venezuela," Cristina Brennan '10 said. "I'm going home. I live in Miami so it's warm and I don't mind going home."
Since long flights often make it impractical to return home, many international students take advantage of alternate spring break programs.
"I'm going with Cabin & Trail to Canyon Land in Utah," Jennifer Chong '10, an international student from Hong Kong, said. "Also, because of the D-Plan, it's a chance to spend time with people you're not going to see for a long time."
On the other hand, many graduating seniors take advantage of their spring breaks to plan a great escape before their final term at Dartmouth, according to JeanCarlos Bonilla '08.
"There was more talk about spring break my senior year than any previous year," Bonilla, who went to Buenos Aires, Argentina, said. "It's our last hurrah being a kid before entering the workforce. I'd never done spring break and it was my last time to do it."
