Today is the final Tues-Thurs class of the spring semester.  Not a cloud in the sky.  Beautiful blue sky, around 65 degrees.  Totally perfect.  Unless of course you are trying to finish projects and papers and start studying for finals and aren’t outside to enjoy it.

But fear not, Deac families!  A good many students were outside between 1:30-2:15 pm.  Some of them were on the way to class, or to get a late lunch.  A LOT of them were destined for the ZSR Starbucks: when I arrived at 1:45 in search of a coffee, the line was all the way up the stairs to the ZSR loft level (my librarian friends told me that the line is really bad right before 2 pm classes start, then it drastically slows around 2:05 – and they were right).

Took a stroll through the ZSR Library and I have to say I can’t recall a time where I saw the lobby so full of people.  Lots of copies being made, students at every table in the atrium – in fact, I heard from a reliable source that every single table in the atrium was occupied at 8 am, which would NEVER happen if it wasn’t the end of the semester.  Normally our students keep vampire hours and would not want to see the sunrise there.

Students were sitting in most of the available nooks and crannies in the ZSR.  I saw tons of students on the 4th floor study room as well as the Wilson Wing.  Reference was pretty packed.  The Mandlebaum Reading Room still had an open table or two.

All the sunny spaces were also occupied outdoors.  On the Quad, I saw students sitting at the teak chairs with laptops on their laps and headphones in their ears.  Some were stretched out on the grass.  Others at cafe tables.  On the Mag Patio, they were reading in the rocking chairs or sitting in a big group around one table – not sure if that was a friendly lunch or some kind of group collaboration.  Outside Zick’s there were 15-20 people in a large group with chairs huddled together – maybe a class meeting there instead of in an academic building?

And as I walked across campus in the various buildings, I heard snippets of conversations.  Funny when you get just a couple of seconds of it.  I heard one that sounded like a student discussing community service, a faculty member getting flustered in a checkout line and saying a good-natured ‘it’s the last day of class, don’t confuse me‘ to the cashier, to someone talking about advising a student who wanted to do extra credit to boost his GPA.

Most of the time though, the students I passed were either in groups talking and smiling or looking lighthearted, or on their own and concentrating (but not grim-faced).  My guess is that even with finals looming, the joy of weather like this cannot be denied.

A final note: I got the following message from our Center for Global Programs and Studies (aka study abroad office).  One of our recent graduates

WFU alum (and current employee in Global Programs) Chelsea Tamura has had her video “Beyond the Forest” selected as a Finalist for the GoAbroad Innovation Awards. We’re trying to generate on-line votes for her and thought you all might be able to share on your social media pages. If so, we would really appreciate it. Details are as follows:

Voting opens today (04/27/15) and will continue until May 27th. All winners will then be announced at the GoAbroad Innovation Awards Reception during the NAFSA Annual Conference & Expo in Boston, on Thursday, May 28th, at 5:30 pm.

Vote for Chelsea’s video here.  Click on the name of the video and hit submit vote at the bottom of the page to vote. 

Watch, like, and share our post on Facebook here. 

Retweet our post on Twitter here. 

As always, thanks for your support of study abroad at Wake Forest!

 

So I hope you’ll join me and vote for Chelsea!

— by Betsy Chapman

 

 

 

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