spring break

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Spring break at Panama City Beach, Florida

For an article concerning the Easter break, see Spring Holiday.

Spring break, also known as March break, Study Week or Reading Week in some parts of Canada, is a week long recess from studying in early spring at universities and schools in the United States, Canada, mainland China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan , Germany , Mexico , and other countries.

Time of the year

In the United States, the timing of spring break in tertiary institutions may range from the middle of March to the later part of April, but many schools are in recess for at least one of the weeks in March. Some schools call this "March break" if it occurs in a middle week in March. Other schools call it "spring recess", or "spring recession".^[1][2][3] Many K–12 institutions in the United States coincide their spring break with Easter and Passover. In New York and Connecticut, most students have spring break in April.

Canada has a very similar practise of giving a week-long break to its elementary school and secondary school students in the month of March. The exact time of the month varies from province to province; Ontario, Nova Scotia and British Columbia, for example, hold their March Break during the second or third week of March, while the break in Alberta usually comes in the last week of March. In the United Kingdom, the corresponding 2 weeks' holiday are called the "Easter break" or "Easter holidays", as it is scheduled for the weeks following and preceding Easter, and accordingly is often held in April.

In many Canadian universities, the similar break in late February or early March is called Reading Week, and is ostensibly intended to allow students to relax from the stresses of their studies.

In Japan, the spring break starts with the end of the academic year in March and ends on April 1 with the beginning of a new academic year.

History

From the end of World War II until the 1980s, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was a notorious spring break destination in the United States. It was largely made so by the efforts of one man, George Warren "Bob" Gill Jr. who was called, "the Father of Fort Lauderdale spring break." [1]. Prior to that, a few were coming to the area for a break from winter cold. On March 19, 2006, the New York Times reported that Fort Lauderdale's reputation as a spring break destination for college students started when the Colgate University men's swimming team went to practice there over break in 1935.^[4] Fort Lauderdale became even more popular due to the 1960 film Where the Boys Are, in which college girls met boys while on spring break there.

Common practices

In locales such as Cancun or Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, spring break activities traditionally include binge drinking, recreational drug use and casual sex. In the past, residents of the Fort Lauderdale area have become so upset at the damage done by vacationers, that the local government passed laws restricting parties in 1985. At the same time, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was enacted in the United States, requiring that Florida raise the minimum drinking age to 21 and causing many underage college vacationers to travel outside the United States for spring break. By 1989, the number of college vacationers fell to 20,000, a far cry from the 350,000 who went to Fort Lauderdale four years prior.^[5]

Spring break party goers responded by moving to the more permissive community of Daytona Beach area (over 200,000 students traveled there each spring at its peak), but after Daytona's local government undertook similar measures, the crowds of the mid-1990s and early 2000s had fallen to a point where "a few students still come, but officials don't even estimate their numbers." Panama City Beach, Florida remains a popular spring break destination due to its relative proximity to many Southern colleges and driving distances. The locals in Panama City Beach welcome Spring Breakers every year, and is a major factor in the city's economy. South Padre Island, Texas and Fort Myers Beach, Florida are also popular Spring Break destinations among students from colleges in the south-central and midwestern parts of the country, as well as from the Northeast. One of the biggest in the Southwest, popularized by MTV is Lake Havasu City, Arizona.

Popular destinations outside the United States include Cancún, Cabo San Lucas, Acapulco, Barbados, Mazatlán, Puerto Vallarta, Jamaica, the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. Tour agencies have not only cited the lower drinking ages in these places, but also the fact that the drinking ages are poorly enforced. Some Tour Companies put on special chartered flights for Spring Break at discounted rates.

It is common for companies to market during spring break, primarily Coca-Cola, Gillette, MTV, and the US Army, Marines, and Navy.

See also

• Schoolies Week

References