As spring break finally comes to close, UW-Stout students return to Menomonie after a week of vacationing, sleeping in, and questionable choices, ready to return to the hustle and bustle of the finishing weeks of the semester close in. For many students on campus, however, this means the start of the semester.

Seniors on campus return from spring break and arrive to the library in droves, ready to check out their semester’s textbooks and achieve the sought-after passing grade.

“Honestly, I just kind of forgot,” says Dane Mattson, senior, “And then I checked D2L and saw we had weekly book assignments. Hopefully I can get some of those done now.”

“I didn’t even know we had textbooks,” mentioned another senior.

“The senior slide is a real thing,” library staff mentioned, “The Monday after spring break is actually one of our busiest days of the year. We prep and overstaff just for campus seniors. They’re ready and willing to do what it takes to not fail their courses.”

The realization that something is missing [textbooks] from their semester usually affects all seniors, but the definitive oh crap moment tends to vary from student to student.

“I went home for break and was laying in bed, falling asleep,” says Ashley Hanes, a graphic design senior, “and all of a sudden my eyes shot open, remembering I forgot my textbooks. I have about 10 stories planned for my professors as to why I forgot. Hopefully they work!”

While forgetting textbooks for over half of a semester may make passing their classes seem bleak, UW-Stout seniors tend to view it as rite of passage, a sign of the end of their college times, ready to begin the next step in their lives.

The true reason why this happens may have no explanation, but the signs show this phenomenon isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon.

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