Studying abroad can be a great opportunity to get a change of pace and to experience new things, but spending months in a foreign country can also lead to homesickness and FOMO for your friends back on campus, especially during sunny Spring Quarter. Because of this, Stanford’s Counseling and Psychological Services has compiled a few easy ways you can bring the traditions of Spring Quarter on The Farm to your home away from home!
- Start your own fraternity or sorority in the basement of a youth hostel in Copenhagen. Spring Quarter on campus is known for rush season, so for all of you that are too far from campus to join the brotherhood of your dreams, go ahead and start your own! Transient youths hopping from one temporary housing option to another are no strangers to binge drinking, anonymous sex and a cult-like sense of community, so go ahead and pull up a Word document, print out some flyers, and lure 6 to 8 White people into your underground dungeon-colony full of fun, flirting, and most importantly, philanthropy.
- Play Beer Pétanque with a bunch of racist old French men in a park.
Another classic Spring Quarter tradition is beer pong, so if you’re hankering for a little BP action, look no further than the pétanque courts of the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. It’s just like Bocce Ball! First, grab some brews from the local grocery store and set them out on the dirt court. Then, the first person to successfully break their own toe by dropping a 5-pound metal pétanque ball on their foot gets to drink a can of beer and grumble something under their breath about how they don’t trust North Africans. No experience required!
- Throw a darty in your host family’s backyard while they’re at Sunday Mass.
This one’s a little risky, but that makes it all the more fun and exciting! After convincing your host mother that you’re Jewish, and therefore can’t even look at a crucifix without getting the strange feeling that a slimy little demon is trying to crawl out of your throat, wait until the family has left for Mass and then invite your Stanford cohort over for a brisk 6am banger. For this to work, it’s very important that you pay off the neighbors to keep their mouths shut. Offer to walk their dog or live-translate an American movie for them. It often doesn’t take much.
- Take a day-trip to Santa Cruz.
Yeah, you read that right. Just bite the fucking bullet and buy a plane ticket. It’s beautiful this time of year!
And there you have it, international folks! We want to make sure you’re having just as much fun this spring as your classmates back on The Farm, so don’t hesitate to try these tips out and let us know how they went by using #SpringHasSprung in all your social media posts! (Fierberg)
