One of the most common questions I get on tours and in interviews is, "What are the winters like?" It's a valid question. We come back from winter break at the beginning of January when the average temperature (according to good ol’ Wikipedia) is 13 degrees. I’m originally from California, so I understand having a fear of cold. I could describe to you how beautiful the world can be when it’s covered in pristine white snow or how wonderful it can be to go out into a crisp, cold morning and have the smell of our local Malt-o-Meal factory greet you. However, for every one of those picturesque views of winter I can give you, I also remember something like walking across Lyman Lakes at 6:30 AM in order to get to early morning Frisbee practice at the Recreation Center with wind chill making it something like -40 degrees outside. Winter in Minnesota definitely isn't always something off of a beautiful postcard...



So, admittedly, winter can sometimes be a doozy. Ultimately, though, it’s what you make of it. Classes keep you really busy and if you keep up your usual activities and pick up some winter ones, then winter term, like the school year in general, will fly by.

Your different options include:
Playing a game of broomball or traying down Bell Hill. The Rec Center has cross country skis you can borrow for fun or you can join the Nordic Skiing Club and do something like a 24-hour cross country ski race. If the idea of walking/snowshoeing/skiing across a frozen part of Lake Superior, guided by the stars and 1,000 candles in ice luminaries, appeals to you then you can participate in Book Across the Bay. Carleton also plans different school wide activities to keep us entertained, like Midwinter Ball where we get all dressed up and have modern, swing, and ballroom dancing options. Added to that is the fact that you never know when something out-of-the-blue will happen to add some excitement to winter, like the men's basketball team making it to play-offs as extreme underdogs and suddenly winning the conference title for the first time in twenty-six years.

If a weather wimp like me can handle the winter, then so can you. And if you want to take a break from it one year, then there's always the option of going on one of our study abroad programs to someplace like Australia, Guatemala, Mali, or New Zealand.