The thing that motivates students most during finals season in Hanover is the promise of going home when it’s all over. Most students leave to go home for the 6-week break, while others have no choice but to stay. After 10 weeks of hustle and bustle, I waved goodbye to my friends and saw the campus usually packed with Dartmouth students suddenly empty. This winterim, the second I’ve spent on campus alone, the realization of my isolation became more apparent than ever.
Just like my freshman year, this winter break is quiet. In my dorm, some students left for home as early as the last day of classes, not even sticking around for finals. It’s a bittersweet feeling to see dormmates and friends leave campus one by one while I remain. Floormates to whom I only got to say ‘hi’ in the fall and friends with whom I promised to play pool — they’re all gone, leaving me with the whole campus to myself.
It was a jarring experience to wake up one morning and realize that I was the only person breathing on my floor.
Remaining on campus as an international student comes with so many factors out of one’s control, from difficulties with travel logistics or politics to financial reasons. Contrary to popular belief many international students can’t afford frequent international trips. A one way ticket to Europe is around $700, in most cases more. International students can surely earn the money working an on-campus job, but it makes a whole world of difference to my family if we send that money back home instead of hopping on a plane. After all, with the exchange-rate, an American dollar Uzbekistan stretches unbelievably far.
This is the second year I am celebrating New Year’s Eve alone. It is more reflective than fun: I will buy fresh fruit and cook some Uzbek plov, just like last year; my mom will tell me they’ve already embraced January 1, 2026, while I slowly wake up in the morning on December 31.
There are some days when I feel like myself. All I can do is wake up, make some Uzbek tea, read something, watch a YouTube video-essay and take a walk around Occom. The days blur into my monotonous existence — the same tea, the same echoing walls, the same dull nights — and the six weeks of winter break feel indescribably long. The free time I’ve been longing for for 10 weeks has finally come, but I don’t know what to do with it now. It’s quite sad that when we finally have free time to be enjoyed with friends, we part ways.
Many of us have heard the saying, “The days are long, but the years are short.” Indeed, six weeks of break feel longer than a ten-week term, and the dates blur and become less important to me, because my life feels paused.
I think winter break gives me time to contemplate my existence, though my life feels especially empty. Days go by when I don’t talk to a single person face-to-face. It creates a sort of yearning to validate my existence — I want to converse with someone and see them and look into their eyes. If I exist only to wake up, reiterate my routine and sleep, then I feel like I hardly exist here and now.
Seeing my sister online will always be second to facing her from several feet away where I am able to wipe an eyelash from her cheek so it doesn’t get into her eye.
I’ve often been frustrated by the crowdedness of Foco or the stacks full of people cramming for mid-terms. Now, I want to see my peers again in these very scenes. These places now feel meaningless to me without other people. I long for personal space, but counterintuitively, I also long for the mess, the crowd and the chaos.
Without people, our small college really feels empty, reminding me that we only create meaning, memory and history if we are together. We don’t just live and study at Dartmouth: We live and study together at Dartmouth.
This winter, if you’ve been on campus for the past six weeks like me, I hope you’re appreciating the return of the rush, even if you sometimes wish you could go back to a campus that was a little bit quieter.
