6 Productive Winter Break Ideas for Grad Students

Winter Break Ideas for Keeping You on Track in Graduate School

SUCCEEDING | SKILLS

12/14/2021 by HIGHERGRAD

The fall semester is wrapping up and winter break is on the horizon. With almost a month’s worth of time away from graduate school, there is plenty of time to be productive. These winter break ideas lean towards to the productive use of your time while still enjoying the holiday season with friends and family.

​Winter break ideas for college students include both professional and personal. As a grad student you can spend the winter break advancing your research, progressing on your thesis, and developing your plans, such as job hunting, for after graduation. On the personal side, you can spend the time working, setting goals and priorities for the next year, and getting organized.

Getting Ahead in Your Graduate Program During Winter Break

The days off during the winter holiday season can be valuable to many graduate students. Students can choose to use the time to relax and decompress from the fall semester, but for others the extra time away from teaching responsibilities and coursework opens up opportunities to advance your research, make progress on your thesis, or work on your post-graduate plans. Either case, the winter break is a key time to help you succeed in your graduate program.

Professional Winter Break Ideas

1. More Research – Winter break is an ideal time for spending more time in the lab or the field on your research. The university will be empty and free from other students, allowing for the space and freedom to get additional research completed.
2. Start, Continue, or Finish Your Thesis – Other students (besides other professionally focused graduate students like yourself) have left campus for winter break. No matter what stage you are in for your graduate school program, you can always spend more time working on your thesis. Either start planning it, continue working on it, or put the final touches on the text in preparation for defense and submission in the spring semester.
3. Figure Out What's Next – It is never to early to think about life after graduate school. Start researching job opportunities and develop your CV in preparation for job applications. Also, think about summer internships or other programs that provide real world experience to boost your skills and experience outside of your graduate program requirements.

Winter Break Ideas for Focusing on Yourself

Although winter break is a great time to focus on graduate school priorities, it is called a “break” for a reason. You need to take at least some of winter break to put yourself first and recharge before the spring semester starts. Here are 3 winter break ideas for college students that specifically focus on you over the holidays.

Personal Winter Break Ideas

1. Go Back to Work – The month long break combined with the holiday shopping season opens up many seasonal jobs. You can put your time to work, literally, and earn some cash to recharge the bank account before heading back to campus in the spring.
2. Set Goals and Priorities for Yourself for the New Year – New Year’s resolution? Hardly, but in the same context, use winter break to put goals and priorities for yourself down on paper for the coming new year. Things like better health, more reading, learning something outside of your comfort zone, or spending more time with family are all great goals for self improvement.
3. Organize Yourself – In conjunction with setting goals, put time aside during winter break to organize. A busy fall semester has ended and the spring semester is only weeks away. In order to succeed in graduate school, you need to be organized. Have your plan ready for spring, understand what you need to accomplish, and restock your grad school essentials so you are prepared for another difficult semester. Read through our graduate school essentials article to learn what essentials you may be missing.

6 Winter Break Ideas for Graduate Students

These 6 ideas for graduate school break over the winter holiday will help you grow professionally and personally.

1. More Research
2. Start, Continue, or Finish Your Thesis
3. Figure out What's Next
4. Go back to Work
5. Set Goals and Priorities for Yourself
6. Organize

Winter break while you are in college is something everyone looks forward too. How you choose to spend the weeks between fall and spring semester can make all the difference. Use the time wisely and focus both professional and personally on achieving your goals as a graduate student. These winter break ideas will get you ahead and keep you ahead as a new year begins.