While students at schools around the nation are hitting the books and attending classes next week, Notre Dame and Saint Mary's students will have only one thing on their minds - break.
The mid-semester break from classes begins Monday and lasts through Friday, leaving students with more than a week of free time. While spring break is usually seen as the best time for travel among college students, many Notre Dame and Saint Mary's students, like Saint Mary's junior Brittany Lee, say they will be hitting the road over fall break.
"I'm spending the week with my boyfriend, and he goes to Central Michigan University," Lee said. "He's not on break."
Lee said she was "excited for break" and happy to be leaving campus.
Other students, like seniors Anna Brennan and Angela Sauer, said that while they will be leaving campus, they are not leaving schoolwork behind.
"I have so much school-related work to do over break that it doesn't really feel like a break," Sauer said.
Both girls said they would spend the entire break re-searching and writing their senior comprehensive projects, intensive works required of Saint Mary's students to graduate.
"I'm researching surges in the youth vote in the 21st century," Brennan said. She also said she will spend almost her entire break working on the "senior comp."
Sauer, who is from Okemos, Mich., said she will at least be working on her project from the comforts of home - although there will be a little added work involved in the trip back home.
"I'm going home because there's a German foreign exchange student coming to my house, and my mom needs me to translate," she said.
Many students will be spending at least a portion of their fall break at home - and most said the part of break not spent at home will be spent at their second home, Notre Dame.
"I'm going to go home and visit some state colleges," freshman Patrick Keating said. "But I am going to the two [football] games."
This weekend, the first of break, kicks off a series of five Notre Dame home football games in a row - which most students with season tickets are loathe to miss.
"I'm going home Sunday and coming back Friday [in order to see the games]," Keating said. "I'm pretty excited for the USC game especially."
Stanford sophomore Sean O'Toole, who said he usually travels "over fall break, spring break, and Christmas break," also said he was sticking around campus to watch Notre Dame take on USC before traveling.
"I'm going to be here until Tuesday, and then I'm going to Washington, D.C. on a base visit with Air Force ROTC," he said.
O'Toole said "of course" he would not want to miss the USC game, calling it "the game of the century."
Keating said he believes most students will stay on campus to watch at least the first football game.
"I think everybody's going to be at the USC game," he said. "BYU ... hopefully a lot of people will show up."
Even though he will be staying on campus for a good part of the week, Keating said he appreciated the opportunity to leave for a while.
"It's nice to have a break in the middle of the semester," he said.
