Noteworthy Alternative Spring Break Ideas

Noteworthy Alternative Spring Break Ideas

If your spring break is coming up soon and you have no plans yet, then do we have good news for you! Below you can find some noteworthy ideas for having an impactful spring break that will allow you to enjoy your community, explore intellectual interests, and/or get to know others better.

Try out these tips to gain a whole new perspective on the town that you live in and gain interesting stories that may come in handy for supplemental essay prompts about your community. 

Survey Residents in Your Community

Is there a social question that has gripped your attention lately? Maybe you wonder about the inner lives of people that live in your town—what they care about, the issues that most fuel them, their interests and passions. Or maybe you hope to be a doctor in the future. While you can’t run tests on your neighbor’s cholesterol levels, you can certainly ask about their diet and exercise habits. Think about what topic interests you, then be creative about the relevant questions you can ask others to find out more about it. The results might surprise you!

You can test your survey with your parents and family friends. But if you are feeling bold, take a stroll to the nearby park and ask people passing by whether they would be willing to take your questionnaire. Since you have one week or more for spring break, we recommend getting a sample of at least 20 persons. Having more data will make the analysis part more fun and insightful.

As for what to do with your findings, you can publish the results on a personal blog or even ask a teacher whether you can present your work to the class. You might even continue this research project through the year by allowing users to take the survey online. Beyond satisfying your intellectual curiosity, such a project will show admissions officers that you take learning into your own hands and explore ideas outside of the classroom.

Host a Small Skills Fair

If you have friends without any spring break plans, gather them together to host a small skills fair with your family and neighbors. Everyone has talents to share with others—be it knitting, speech writing, or stretching your limbs in an interesting way. Set a date, time, and location for the event (it could be your own home if you get your parents’ permission; a public park could work too). Then send an invitation out to people through email.

How you structure the event can depend on the number of people who will attend. It can be as little as five participants! You might allow each person 20 minutes to demonstrate their skill and teach it others; or you can have people split into groups according to the skill they hope to learn. Have fun with it! The goal is to bring individuals in your community together to enjoy each other’s company and learn new skills.

Host a Dialogue Circle

In China, universities and churches host English circles where people learning the language gather together to practice their skills. Often, American students and expatriate workers will attend in order to get to know locals. These events serve a double function of connecting persons from different cultures and developing the language skills of English and Chinese language learners alike.

In the same fashion, you could organize a dialogue circle to connect people from different spheres. It can be in the same fashion of English circles, but for a second language you are learning; or it could be an intergenerational circle, a cross-cultural circle—you get the idea!

Again, you do not need to gather a lot of participants. It is the quality of the conversations, the connecting of people from different backgrounds that matter most. Pick a topic and location (a public park will work for this too), come up with conversation starter questions, and then advertise it around your neighborhood. 

Make Your Own Movie

Instead of lounging around watching TV, why not make your own entertainment? This is perfect for theatre students looking to refine their craft; but you don’t have to be committed to performing arts to make some home videos. You can try your hand at writing a skit and then have your family act it out, or even do a documentary of your life, doing a video blog of your favorite places in your town.

There are many ways to spin it: make your own news segment, record interviews of interesting people in your community, make your own low-budget horror film.

If necessary, give yourself thirty minutes to review “How To” videos on YouTube. But the best way to learn creative works is to try them out. Jump into the deep end! For projects like these, there is no such thing as failure; all that matters is that you use the time you have this spring break to actively pursue your interests.

You can discover whole new perspectives and ideas by simply engaging with the people you live near. During this spring break, take a leap outside your comfort zone and discover the beauty of your community by trying out these ideas.  

The expert admissions consultants at Wise World Prep have helped hundreds of students maximize their potential of being admitted to their top choice colleges and universities. Over 20 years, we have successfully guided students through each stage of the application process – from choosing competitive high school courses to building an appropriate college list to drafting winning essays to writing persuasive update and appeals letters. We would be happy to answer your questions and partner with you to create a successful admissions roadmap.

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