Second semester at BC is always better than the fall

If today’s snow didn’t convince you why second semester is the best, here are some more reasons for you.

Our football season is finally over

For four long, awful months we had to witness Steve Addazio’s third year campaign blunder on all cylinders (except maybe defensively) as we ended the season 3-9 without a single win in the ACC and 8 straight losses to end the season. Thank god that’s over. The Heights is now free to write about literally anything else, we don’t have to hear about how embarrassing our football program is constantly by ESPN, and we can focus on the one sport that we’ve always been consistently good at: hockey.

Hockey is back in full swing

Finally, a sport where we actually excel and routinely dominate. Our men’s hockey team has even improved significantly since last year, holding an impressive 18-4-4 Overall (10-1-4 Hockey East) record as they head into the Beanpot Final Game on Monday to face off against the always less impressive Boston University. With Demko in front of the net and Jerry York looking to add more wins to his incredible 1,000+ win resume, I’m pretty confident that our hockey team will continue to pick up the slack from this past year’s football season.

Freshmen are officially adjusted

Now that we’re well into second semester, freshmen should be fairly adjusted to where things are around campus and how things work. This is a benefit for everyone, not just freshmen, because the Boston College community thrives when everyone feels at place here and views BC as their home away from home. While some students (myself included) felt at home here within the first week of freshmen year, it can take others a whole semester to acclimate to college life.

The short wait for Spring Break

Andrew enjoying the warm weather back in Los Angeles, CA

Thanksgiving break is awesome, no doubt about it. Seeing family and old friends from back home is always a great time, and the long wait makes it that much more satisfying. However, that long wait between the first day of school and Thanksgiving break includes far too many stressful school weeks in a row, and it’s finally time to have a logical break. Spring Break is usually the first full week in March, with this years’ being the week of March 7^th, meaning that we are only here for 6 weeks before either going back home and relaxing, staying here and taking a break from our responsibilities, or going to Cancun so that we can change our profile pictures on Facebook.

St. Patricks’ Day (and we’re lucky to be in Boston)

Andrew and some friends taking to the streets of Boston last St. Patrick’s Day.

Since 1737, Boston has been the primary focus of St. Patrick’s Day held every March, a celebration of the long history of the city’s Irish population that immigrated here years ago. It’s an awesome day where everyone at BC and elsewhere dresses up in green and goes into Boston to party with the rest of the city. This year, St. Patrick’s Day falls on a Thursday (March 17^th) and will be a great day to march into the city and cheer on the parade with the rest of the Boston faithful.

Easter weekend

There are some major perks that come with attending a Catholic school, one of them being Easter Weekend. No classes on Holy Thursday, Good Friday, or Easter Monday result in a much appreciated 5-day weekend. I do have to point out, though, that classes with start times of 4:00 PM or later on Mondays will actually meet regardless of the fact that everyone else has the day off, so those people might have to get back to campus a little earlier than expected. Sorry.

Marathon Monday

Marathon Monday, 2015.

Ah, the best day of the entire school year: Marathon Monday. Similar to St. Patrick’s Day, Boston dedicates this whole day to drinking and partying with friends, the major exception being that instead of getting decked out in green we all (attempt) to watch the marathon runners as they pass Boston College, mile 21 of the Boston Marathon. The day usually gets started at the crack of dawn, so there are some of us that don’t quite make it to the friend group dinner at Lower.

It’s getting warmer, not colder

Although the weather is arguably better for every first semester than for every second semester, we can rest assured that it’s on an upward trend to Spring. With the exception of the freezing cold days every now and then past February, we’ll know that these next few weeks should be the worst we’re going to get for the rest of the semester. It has been unusually warm, though, with temperatures oddly reaching mid-50s for the month of February when they should be approaching 0. Global warming, anyone?

We end the semester with a bang: Modstock 

In my opinion, Modstock is the third best day of the year after both Marathon Monday and St. Patrick’s Day, respectively. For those freshmen or other students that have never attended Modstock, it’s basically just BC’s version of a college Spring festival where BC students pile into the Mod Lot to enjoy a concert put on by CAB. We were treated last year with Ludacris, who I think everyone in attendance can attest was even better than anticipated because of his choice to play many hits of the past. Note that I did not include Plexapalooza in this list of my top 10 favorite things about 2^nd semester…not sure it would crack the top 25 either.

Finally, summer is not too far away

At the conclusion of this semester, we all have summer break to look forward to. While no time of the year is as magical as Christmas time (with the epic Mariah Carey rendition of “All I Want for Christmas”), summer is a lot longer and gives us a chance to spend a solid amount of time on something completely unrelated to school. Whether it may be that cool internship, summer job back home, trip to that obscure little village in Europe or Africa, or a summer spent pondering our thoughts, we’re given a few months to fully reflect on our last school year and prepare ourselves for another great one. Unless you’re a senior, in which case I apologize for reminding you that many of us won’t be graduating in May with you. However, the future is bright for the Class of 2016!