1. Check your travel dates against tests and major assignments
You may have to work ahead on something, so now is a very good time to check! I, personally, have a thesis and report due the evening that I fly out. I definitely would not want to be discovering that conflict in the middle of packing frantically at 2 a.m. the night before.
2. Make sure you’re clear on your state’s travel restrictions
Linked here is a very nice alphabetized list with some extra state-specific considerations noted, although you can also find plenty of other resources by just googling your state if you’re, say, a Wisconsin native and too lazy to scroll down a page or two.
3. Strategically schedule your next load of laundry
If you’re totally okay with stuffing a bunch of dirty clothes and sheets in a box to marinate in their own sweat stains for two months, then by all means ignore this one. Otherwise, you should probably try to get one last load in a few days before you go so you can pack all of your remaining dirty stuff in your suitcase to wash and fumigate in the comfort of your own home. If you’re on Commons this semester, you may want to try to do this a little earlier than the rest of us, given what’s been said about the tragic (or nonexistent) state of many of the houses’ laundry rooms.
4. Get a few days ahead on work
This is sort of an addendum to Recommendation #1. Even if you don’t need to take jetlag into account, no one is going to want to be writing a whole paper, perfecting an instrument solo, or finishing up a lab report the day after five-to-ten hours of travel (or more!), so it’s probably a good idea to finish everything for the next day or two before you head out. I’m saying this mostly because my Psych textbook taught me that two great ways to motivate yourself to achieve a goal are to write it down and tell people about it. Whether I, personally, will actually muster the self-discipline to do this is extremely uncertain. But it’s still good advice!
5. Take a break to notice how pretty campus is
If you are, like me, from a region not blessed with the tiny bundles of joy men call chipmunks in anywhere near the abundance Nashville seems to take for granted, then make sure you stop and pay attention, next time you see a chipmunk, to how absolutely adorable they are! And also, sure, golden hour here is incredible; for maybe an hour before sunset all the red brick is warm and glowy and the falling leaves catch the sunlight on their way down, and the sky is a fantastic gradient of blues, and all the really good sunsets reflect beautifully off the windows on 25th Ave. I highly recommend taking a walk somewhere around 4 p.m. before you head home. 🙂