What you REALLY do during Reading Week

By Janine Kavanagh

Reading week. The bi-annual reprieve from lectures, assignments and the stress of college has arrived. For those of us in faculties that support it anyway.

A whole week when we should be focusing on upcoming assignments and getting down to business on that all important college work, but what do we actually use it for? Here are the most popular things to do during the week.

1. Go home to mammy: Don’t deny it; we’ve all done it at some point or another. Whether you fly back to the nest because you’re broke and need a good feed, want to catch up with old friends, or you’re genuinely homesick, most college students take this opportunity to visit the old homestead.

2. Go on a trip: If you’re the exact opposite and want to get away from everything, a trip always works. You are in college and there’s no shortage of expeditions during reading week with clubs and societies on campus. You could flit off to Belfast with the Journalism society or take some snaps in Prague with Fotosoc, either way, you need a break.

3. Work experience: Some people will take this opportunity to arrange a nice internship or placement at a company relevant to their course. If this is your plan, you’re spending your reading week wisely and responsibly, but we’ll be having a lie-on, so sucks to be you.

4. Procrastination: You had every intention of getting a head start on your upcoming assignments and catching up on your course reading. It was going to be easy, everyone had either gone home or gone away and you were broke so you couldn’t even go out to distract yourself but did it work? Of course not. You sat down to catch up on one (read: many) of your shows or decided to have a few extra hours in bed and your whole week went down the drain. Don’t blame yourself; it’s happened to the best of us.

One thing you can be certain that students aren’t doing on their reading week is reading, unless it is on the internet. But if you find one who is, they deserve a hearty pat on the back, and an alcoholic beverage to distract them. Can’t let ‘em make the rest of us look bad, can we?