“Lazy Boy On Campus” is a weekly column on how to embrace laziness while maintaining a jam packed schedule. Easy, right?
A student walks through Fairfield Way in the middle of a winter storm. Winters at UConn see tempters far below the single digits, which can discourage students from attending class. (Jason Jiang/The Daily Campus)
And I’m back for one more blisteringly cold semester here at UConn. Welcome back to all students and if you are new to UConn welcome to the university. For those of you who don’t know what this is, every week I write about how to survive being lazy on campus while still enduring a jam packed schedule. Some weeks it’ll be tips and tricks and other weeks it’ll be just random musings on being lazy.
Bureaucratic information aside, let’s get back to the opener of this piece: UConn is cold. For those of you who have never experienced winter up at Storrs, let me just tell you that you are not ready. On a good day it’ll be 40 degrees outside, on a bad day it’ll be -10 degrees not counting wind chill. And don’t even think that classes will be cancelled. Like the USPS, neither snow, sleet, freeing rain or subzero temperatures keep UConn from continuing class as scheduled. For some perspective, a few years ago it was too cold for the bus lines to actually run. Guess who was told that they still had to go class? Knowing this, you could always vote to not go to class one day just to get a break from the cold – and as much as I would personally love to do it – I’m here to advise you against it.
I know as well as everyone else how nice a warm bed, apartment, dorm room, etc. is when there are subzero temperatures outside. Hearing the wind howl across campus is enough to convince anyone that the best place to spend a day is inside away from tundra-esque world that is UConn. You will probably just tell yourself that you’ll go to class tomorrow and everything will be better.
Except it won’t. Here’s the thing with UConn. Until April, it remains notoriously cold. And even April isn’t a guarantee; we’ve gotten snow during the last month of school in the past. Realistically speaking, the next day is going to be no warmer than the day you skip. More than likely it’s going to feel colder than the previous day because you haven’t been outside in a full 24 hours.
Skipping class because of the cold also creates a dangerous precedent. Like I said, there are going to be a lot of cold days. If you skip one day, you are going to skip again and again and again. At that point you aren’t being lazy or “taking an off-day,” you are being stupid. The world is a cold place (pun definitely intended); no professor is going to accept your excuse that it was cold outside when you tell them that you missed too many days and need some extra credit work.
There are ways to be lazy during this cold weather without screwing up your classes. On the weekends, instead of going out to party with friends you can curl up in your room with Netflix and DP Dough. You can take as many warm showers/baths as you need to recover from the cold weather, even if that means that you stay there for hours. Take the bus instead of walking, and skip the gym to avoid spending too much time outside. At the end of the day, you do you. Just try to avoid skipping class.
We are all paying ridiculous amounts of money to get a degree. Skipping class is the easiest way to send the money down the drain. Your education is important and no freezing weather should keep you away from that. And you’ll be pretty happy when you manage to survive UConn winter. It’s a proud badge of honor you can wear. And spending some time outside will make those lazy moments all the more sweeter. Good luck during this first week and stay warm.
Amar Batra is a senior staff photographer and opinion’s staff columnist for The Daily Campus. He can be reached via email amar.batra@uconn.edu. He tweets at @amar_batra19.