Staff Writer | Dayon Hokim Jr
Spring break is supposed to be a part of the semester where everything slows down. Classes pause, deadlines loosen up, and students finally get a chance to breathe before the stress of finals starts creeping in. But for many FIU students, spring break doesn’t feel like a break at all.
At a school like FIU, where most students commute, work jobs, and juggle responsibilities outside of class, spring break often becomes a reminder of who can afford to leave and who can’t.
While social media fills up with beach trips and flights home, many FIU students are staying right where they are, not because they want to, but because they don’t really have any other option.
As an out-of-state student at FIU, spring break has always been complicated for me. Going home usually isn’t realistic because flights are expensive, and staying in Miami can also be costly. When classes stop and the campus quiets down, I’m still here working, trying to manage money, and preparing for the second half of the semester.
Spring Break ends up feeling less like a break and more like a pause in classes while everything else continues. Some FIU students don’t even get a break. Teachers might assign work over the break so they don’t lose a week of classes. If students are taking a class during session A, then their finals week is the week of spring break.
Spring break also hits differently because FIU is in Miami, a city that’s constantly marketed as a “Spring Break destination.”
Tourists flood South Beach, hotels jack up prices, and nightlife takes over the city. If I even considered wanting to go to the beach to relax for a bit, I’d have to deal with cops everywhere and blocked off roads, making it impossible to feel relaxed.
During that time, FIU students who stay behind are trying to figure out what’s actually affordable and accessible for them.
Miami can feel exciting from the outside, but when you’re a student on a budget, it can quickly feel out of reach.
There’s also the emotional side of spring break that doesn’t get talked about enough. Long-distance relationships get tested. Friend groups shift. Some people come back feeling refreshed, while others return more exhausted than before.
For a lot of us, it’s just a week without classes, not a real break.
A real break is time to rest without worrying about money or responsibilities, but Spring Break for many FIU students is just a week without classes, while everything else stays the same.
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