In the spirit of Fri­day, I believe that it is only appro­pri­ate to dis­cuss other fun things you can do dur­ing the week­end instead of par­ty­ing like a rock-star

1). Get to know your local com­mu­nity: There is always some­thing fun and excit­ing hap­pen­ing on a Fri­day night within your college’s local com­mu­nity. In Eagle Rock, CA, there was a fan­tas­tic farmer’s mar­ket with deli­cious fruits and veg­eta­bles, and some of the best flo­ral arrange­ments I had ever seen. There were plenty of times where I pur­chased the raw ingre­di­ents that were soon to become part of scrump­tious din­ner dishes later that night. Research what­ever it is that your future school’s com­mu­nity spe­cial­izes in, and take advan­tage of the opportunity.

On a sim­i­lar note, take advan­tage of the your community’s cul­tural offer­ings. Per­haps there is a huge Lebanese pop­u­la­tion and there are a plethora of delec­table Mediter­ranean restau­rants sur­round­ing your cam­pus. Why not go on a tabouli / falafel-crawl and deter­mine which of these eater­ies has the best grub in your area.

2). Study???!!! Con­trary to pop­u­lar belief, most col­lege stu­dents actu­ally use the week­end to catch up on school­work, or to poten­tially pre­pare for a midterm or paper due the fol­low­ing week. With no classes on Sat­ur­day or Sun­day, it does not hurt to catch up on class read­ings or get ahead on the work that is due the fol­low­ing week.

3). Sleep: Dur­ing your col­le­giate career, you may find that there are weeks when you pull back-to-back-to-back all-nighters because it so hap­pens that you had three intense midterms that week. As a result, you might want to use your Fri­day and Sat­ur­day nights to catch up on lost sleep.

As always, please feel free to add your thoughts on what you think make for great alter­na­tive week­end social activities.