Midterms… one of the most dreaded times of the term (second to finals). But the silver lining of all the testing is midterm reading period!! We get a four day weekend, and most people go home or go on other trips put together by groups on campus. This midterm reading period my friends and I, got to spend four beautiful days at Lawrence University, we enjoyed perfect weather and spent it lounging around outside on the numerous lovely places on campus. Even some of the trees were in bloom, and everyone was in good spirits!
Don’t let this fool you though. For most of us midterm reading period isn’t all just lounging around having good times with friends or taking endless Netflix breaks followed by a nap. It also includes catching up on lots of work before plunging into the second half of the term.
Luckily the work I had to do took me outside on an adventure all across campus and even into downtown Appleton. This term I am taking an Intro to Geology course here at Lawrence, and it has been very fun. The best part is many of our labs consist of FIELD TRIPS!! It has shown me many cool parts of the area outside Appleton. This week our lab was a scavenger hunt, we got a list of places to go and see certain rocks, on and off campus, that we had to try and identify! We got our geology kit and took to testing all different kinds of rocks, many of them were ones I saw everyday on my commute across campus!
The different places included statues on the bridge to our campus center (as shown in the pictures below), the steps of Memorial Hall, the floor and walls of our science hall, the fireplace in one of the dorms and many places downtown including stores and the City Center. One of the rocks was a wall in a building downtown and it even had the fossil tracing of a squid in it!!
The two statues on the bridge that we needed to identify.
Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all fun and games just running around looking at and testing rocks, it was a tough time! And I am sure the citizens of Appleton were curious as to why there were people running around with notebooks staring at sides of buildings. I love geology here at Lawrence because there are so many field trips. On one of our labs we visited an amazing mineral gallery, it had the most beautiful minerals I have every seen. On another one of our trips we got to visit High Cliff, which is a beautiful place overlooking a Lake Winnebago, which is a great place just to visit for a picnic or scenic walk. My friends who are geology majors actually went on a field trip to Duluth over reading period for a convention and got to stay in nice hotels.
Even if you are not a geology major (like me.. cause I am pretty sure geology does not have much to do with my mathematics major) it is still a great class to take for your lab requirement. One of the many perks of attending a liberal arts college is that you get a taste of so many different subjects, I never would have thought that I would be running around campus identifying rocks!
So all and all midterm reading period was very relaxing and enjoyable, a time for everyone to relax and catch up on work (or maybe procrastinate a bit), and to have fun with friends outside in the beautiful weather. Lawrence is such a beautiful place in the spring, and what a great term to have geology field trips! I highly encourage anyone to take a geology class!