With the end of this Fall Semester just around the corner, students, staff, and professors at Stan State will soon be diving into this year’s Winter Break.

Winter Break will consist of both a Holiday Break, from Dec. 25, 2018 – Jan. 1, 2019, and a Winter Recess, from Jan. 2, 2019 – Jan. 22, 2019.

During the Holiday Break, Stan State will be completely closed and during the Winter Recess, some students, professors, and staff will be continuing their studies, lectures, and employment duties.

For some students, school breaks have served as a perfect time of year for both taking vacations and reconnecting with their family members. “Last year we went to Disneyland,” recalls student Summer Russell (freshman, Pre-Nursing). “We usually go to places like Disneyland for smaller breaks, but for bigger breaks like summer, we’ll go to a different state to visit family.” Russell hopes that this year she can, “focus more on visiting family because I haven’t been able to see them as much due to being busy with college and work.”

For other students, vacations in the near future are a certain thing but this Winter Break will be a great opportunity for them to focus on working.

“I plan on working, I’m just trying to get as many hours as I can in. I’ll be saving money and spending time relaxing.” Says Alex Lopez (Criminal Justice, Senior). When discussing future vacation plans, Lopez lists the United Kingdom as his main place of interest. “My brothers went to London recently, I saw some of the pictures they took and it was really nice!”

Students aren’t the only ones affected by this change in schedule.

Executive Chef, Caleb Sisco, whose job requires he work nearly all year round, says that “the only time I get a little bit of time off is during Winter Break.” When he isn’t in the field applying his passion for culinary arts, he spends his Winter Breaks “doing the back end stuff that nobody sees”, such as, “ordering (food and supplies), dealing with food costs, considering student’s feedback, and implementing new ideas into our food venues to promote efficiency and student satisfaction.”

Sisco, shares that one of the coolest things he enjoys about his job is that every year, during summer break, he gets to host Camp Taylor. “A really cool camp that we do is for all these children who have some kind of heart problem and that’s like the coolest thing that I think that I do that I feel like I’m giving back.”

With the recent announcement of The Vasche Library building to undergo a major renovation. This break, Librarians will also have their hands full.

Librarian Maryann Hight details an important project that she, other Library staff, and faculty members have planned for in order to prepare for this renovation, “because the library building will be closed at the end of the Spring Semester and we have to move everything out, one of the things we have planned is, we’re going to do a massive office cleaning. We’re going to bring in extra trash cans, shred and recycle paper, clean, get everything back to where it belongs, and some of the processing things that will be needed to be done prior to when the books are packed up and put in storage.”

Much like the students and staff at Stan State, this coming break, professors will also have their work cut out for them. “More often than not, in every vacation, I start prepping for the next semester,” explains Communication Studies Professor Dr. Daniel Horvath. “The kind of classes that I teach change sometimes so based on the experience of the previous semester there are things that I want to tweak to revamp the class.”

Since professors are usually focused on teaching, grading papers, and making class preparations during the semester, the Winter Break is also a perfect time for Dr. Horvath to do some of the things he enjoys. “As soon as the break starts, I usually buy the latest game on PS4 that I love and after a week has passed, then I tend to get into the rhythm of doing a little bit of research.”

Although all students, staff, and professors will be utilizing their breaks in different ways to accommodate their personal needs, on Jan. 25, 2019 the Winter Break will come to an end and the Stan State community will be in full swing again as the 2019 Spring Semester begins.