Fall Break, the annual break approximately halfway through fall semester, begins this Friday, Oct. 7. Although the break is a much welcomed repose for many students to visit their friends and families at home, athletes often have commitments during this time. Boys’ soccer, a fall sport, has practice every day during the break, as well as two games.
When he isn’t practicing for soccer, Daniel Lee ’20 plans to take advantage of down time at Swarthmore without classes.
“A couple of my friends and I are planning on going to Philly since we’ll have a bunch of time to kill … it’ll be nice to finally be able to go to Philly because we’ve been busy on weekends because of games,” Lee said.
However, fall sports are not the only commitments students have during the break. Girls’ basketball, a winter sport, has their first official practice on Sunday, Oct. 16. However, they come back from break early in order to get to know each other better as a team.
“We come back on Friday for a team retreat where we workout, cook meals as a team, and have the chance to share some personal stuff about ourselves,” said Raina Williams ’18. “It’s a great bonding experience.”
Friday, Oct. 14 is also an eventful time for Peaslee Debate Club, which will be attending a Pro-Am tournament at American University. Six teams will be competing at the tournament, with each team consisting of one novice debater and one varsity debater.
“It’s cool, just because novice debaters have the ability to team with someone who’s more experienced, so we’re definitely going to learn a lot from the tournament,” said Cassandra Stone ’20.
The Outsider’s Club is also taking advantage of the week-long break to introduce new club members to what the club does. The club plans to go on a backpacking trip to the Allegheny Front Trail in the Black Moshannon State Park in Philipsburg, PA.
“This particular trail is especially nice because it is not terribly rugged, which means that … [it] is suitable for backpackers of any experience level, and this particular place was the best fit for us,” Elias Blinkoff ’17, president of Outsiders club, said.
Blinkoff believes taking a trip during fall break is beneficial for both new and seasoned backpackers.
“The more experienced backpackers have an opportunity to teach skills to the more novice backpackers that they wouldn’t necessarily be able to teach here on campus. There are all of these valuable skills about being comfortable and surviving in the woods that really can only be taught on trail,” Blinkoff said. “Usually, it’s a nice experience for both the new backpackers and the more experienced folks, just to have that communication around context that wouldn’t necessarily crop up in a different environment.”
While many are spending their breaks focusing on the world outside campus, Henry Han ’20 and Natasha Markov-Riss ’20 have a plan to be implemented at Swarthmore. The two are working on starting a late-night, on campus food service called “Late Nite,” which will serve dumplings delivered to dorms on campus.
“[We] see a niche that we think could be filled the late night food niche and we’re trying to tackle that from two angles. One, we want to provide a really convenient food source, and two, we want to make it available at times when other food sources aren’t,” Markov-Riss said.
During fall break, the two are working on building the groundwork for their business. “We’re going to be building an app that will allow people to order those dumplings at the click of a button, we’re going to be researching insurance options, and we’re also going to perfect our dumpling recipe and do some trial cook ups,” Markov-Riss said.
“Late Nite” will serve its dumplings in red solo cups, and in keeping with its late night party theme, plans to donate 10 percent of profits to the NuWave social organization.
“We’re very excited about it; we’ve heard a lot of positive feedback from the community,” Markov-Riss said. “We’ll be ready to launch when we come back from fall break!”
Fall break will last for 10 days, with classes resuming on Monday, Oct. 17.
