"Wait, so you're not going to be home this summer?"
"No, I'm going to be at Dartmouth."
"Summer school? Did you fail a class or something?"
It's hard to explain to friends and family at home exactly why going to school in the summer is not the worst thing ever. It's much easier to do at Dartmouth most upperclassmen start drooling and get a foggy look in their eyes when you use the magic words. But outside the hills of Hanover, a quick and easy explanation of "sophomore Summer" is elusive.
"I didn't fail. All the sophomores have to stay on."
"So it's just your class?"
"Yeah, plus some random kids from other colleges. They just kind of loiter on the Green creeping out girls and asking where the road with all the fraternities is."
"Weird. Will you be taking classes?"
"Yeah, but they won't be too hard."
"But it's Dartmouth, aren't all your classes hard?"
Sophomores commonly dodge this question about classes by citing how easy the course load will be. After all, you're only taking two classes or you're taking Astro 2 or you just know that the summer gods will do everything in their power to lighten your load and restore your faith in the sacred fun of free time.
If you are taking Econ 26 and cannot in good conscience argue that your schedule is easy, another popular strategy is to remind your interrogator that taking three engaging, interesting classes is infinitely better than a mind-numbing internship spent photocopying important people's unimportant documents.
"But what makes it so fun?"
"Well, all my friends will be there."
"Aren't they always?"
"No."
Sophomore summer provides a one-term break from the social disadvantages of the D-Plan a system that seems cool during tours when you hear about incredible opportunities abroad on exciting off-terms, but also a system that makes you want to tear your hair out when you realize you won't see your friends for six months. Oh, the infinite distance between F and W...
"So what are you going to do all day?"
"Just be outside, you know."
"And do what?"
"Hang out."
Hanging out is the perfect term for sophomore summer because it can literally mean anything. A person who is "hanging out" could be playing pong or going to a dance party or sitting on the couch doing absolutely nothing. It has become a state of mind more than anything the sweetest sophomores will even hang out in class.
When you come back from sophomore summer, there might be better ways of explaining just what you were doing in New Hampshire for 10 weeks. Concrete words like "river" and "barbecue" are loaded with memories that mean much more than the vague descriptions of "awesome" and "cool." Then again, maybe even they can't capture the joy that will be 10X.
"So you're really going to be gone all summer?"
"Yeah, it's going to be really fun. I swear. It just is."
