Keene State College has had two snowstorms in the past few weeks. The college was closed during the first storm and stayed open until 2 p.m. during the most recent one, despite both storms resulting in about the same amount of snow.
During the snowstorm on Tuesday, Jan. 27 the college was closed, while during the storm on Monday, Feb. 2 the college stayed open for morning and early afternoon classes. As for the Monday storm, Nolan Foley, a KSC senior, said, “They probably should have canceled classes all day. It has snowed as much as it did in the last storm, if not more.”
Since Foley lives a seven-minute walk from campus, he said the walking conditions were not ideal.
Taylor Thomas / Student Life Editor
“I had to walk in the middle of the street because the sidewalks weren’t plowed,” he said. Sophomore Tessa Crovetti agreed that walking to her morning classes in the snow was not fun. “I slipped three times just walking here. It wasn’t even plowed,” Crovetti, who lives on campus, said. Crovetti said she had three classes on Monday and none were canceled. “I think the pressure of the last storm caused the snow day last week, but there wasn’t as much hype for this one, but just as much snow,” she said. As for the storm that resulted in the first snow day of 2015, on Tuesday, Jan. 27, students spent their day off in various ways.Regardless of age, students said they will always get excited for a snow day.
In elementary school and even in high school, some said they had traditions such as putting a spoon under their pillow before they went to sleep, like first-year Ben Forest.
“I don’t do that anymore,” Forest said.
“Now, it’s more of hope and a little bit of intuition to know if we’re going to have a snow day or not,” Forest continued.
Forest said that during the first day of 2015 classes were canceled due to snow, he spent most of that day getting work done for class and spending time with friends.
Since he doesn’t have his car while living on campus, Forest said he felt stuck in Keene, when he would have otherwise liked to have been snowboarding at Crotched Mountain. For this snow day Forest said he spent the whole day inside because everyone he was with had no desire to go out into the “blizzard.”
“Ideally,” Forest said, “I would be going on outdoor adventures with friends. I would go snowboarding, ice fishing or anything as long as I was outside.”
“I will admit though, it was a pretty relaxing day to be able to unwind and not have to worry about homework deadlines,” Forest continued. Another KSC junior agreed that she had a very relaxing day inside during the storm and loved getting to de-stress.
“Since we’re not in high school anymore I feel like we need snow days so much more because we’re more stressed now than we were then. It’s nice to relax and not worry for a day,” she said.
“My roommate and I heavily watched ‘Gossip Girl’ and then a love movie,” the junior said about what she did during the Tuesday snow day. She continued to say she didn’t leave her room all day.
“It was very relaxing and I’m not sorry about it at all,” she said. She also noted snow days in college are very different than they were in high school.
“I would usually go outside with my younger siblings if I were home, but I get to be lazy here because my mom’s not here to stop me,” she said. Senior Tyler Di Pietro agreed that snow days in college are different than when he was in high school and primary schools.
“Snow days in college, as goes with most things in college, provide a lot more freedom with the things I can spend my time doing. Also, I’m immediately with some of my best friends when the day begins rather than having to struggle to find a ride from my parents of theirs in order to hang out with them,” he said. Di Pietro said he spent most of this snoww day outside with friends. “We built a snowboard setup in a backyard and had a bunch of friends trying it out,” Di Pietro said. Di Pietro said it was nice to be able to get together with his friends because that’s usually hard to do during weekdays, when everyone has different class schedules.
Regardless of how students spend their snow days, they are unanimous in that they are grateful for the day free from classes and obligations.
Taylor Thomas can be contacted at tthomas@keene-equinox.com
