Summer is often anticipated by students as a chance in the academic year to unwind or further their education. Each student has a personal motive for why they make the decision to either take summer classes, use the time for leisure or pursue travel.
In Peter Guru’s case, summer is an opportunity for him to graduate in the spring. “I want to graduate at spring, so I had to take summer classes …I would go somewhere, like hang around with my friends,” Guru said.
Shasanka Gautam, an international student from Nepal in his senior year, sees summer as his chance to travel and try new things he didn’t have the time for during fall or spring. “I think I’ll just be here in Ogden and I’ll just roam around, visit new places, explore Ogden more because it’s been just one year here at Weber State. I have plans to go fishing and then do some jet skiing and then boating, you know … I think I’ll work full-time,” Gautam said.
Full-time employment is often limited to just the summer for international students, which is Gautam’s reason for looking into it during the break. Some of his friends who are also international students plan on visiting their families back home in Nepal.
Gautam isn’t the only student who wants to explore Ogden’s outdoor activities over the season. Morgan Lowe, another student in her senior year, is also looking to take advantage of Ogden’s abundance of outdoor opportunities.
“I obviously won’t be taking classes, but I’ll still be here in Ogden, so I’m looking forward to a lot of hiking and outdoors activities.” Lowe said. She also expressed how trips were easier to plan, as anything longer than a day trip was difficult to put together with the unpredictability of the semester.
“So I did two summer semesters. The reasons I did consider them was just to help my degree along … there’s definitely some summers I’m like ‘I really don’t want to do summer classes,’ it was mostly just because I wanted that gap between fall and spring … because school … , it’s just very time-consuming,” Lowe said.
With each student looking to spend summer vacation in different ways, it can be a very dynamic time of year, with the time it offers and its potential often being left up to the student.
Registration for summer semester is open until the end of the first week of class, which begins on May 4.
