Nothing to do at college? How could that be?

Many students at Iowa Lakes have had to the find their own versions of entertainment as of late. Last year many students were doing things like going to movies for $1 at the beginning of the month to going on hiking trails at Fort Defiance Park to even just hanging out with friends at the dorms. However, ever since the students at Iowa Lakes first came back to college, there has been sort of a environmental change as of late when it comes to doing fun activities on and off campus. Instead of enjoying the weather outside and doing a lot of fun activities, it seems like people are staying indoors and playing video games just to avoid doing fun stuff on an a lot of things that we love to in world today. So the question that you should be asking yourself is, why is that?

For the past few years Iowa Lakes has provided many fun activities for the students to do on and off campus. Katie Larson, who is the head softball coach/Student Senate Coordinator for Iowa Lakes Community College would talk about what the activity plan is usually like for the students at Iowa Lakes.

“There are student senates at all five campuses,” said Larson. “The Estherville Student Senate has about at least 8-12 students in their senate. They are in charge of coming up with all of the student engagement activities for the campus. I’m mainly here to help with that, but they are essentially in charge of doing all of it. They are the ones that call and set things up, they are in charge of all of the setup and maintenance, they are in charge of promoting events, things like that. They just simply come up with those types of ideas and they just run with them,” said Larson.

Larson would then continue to talk about some of the common events and activities that the students would usually put on for college students to do at the college.

“Tie-dye is usually the big one,” said Larson. “We also have Movie Monday that usually happens the first Monday of the month that can allow the students to go to the local theater for $1. We usually have a bowling night, a paint war, different things along those lines just to be active, but yet you also don’t have to be like into sports to do some of our activities,” said Larson.

Logan Koedam, who is a current sophomore at Iowa Lakes and a current wrestler for the Iowa Lakes wrestling team would talk about some of the activities that he has done since he has first came back to college.

“There hasn’t been too much happening so far,” said Koedam. “All of the activities that I’ve done lately so far have been either playing beanbags with friends and roommates on campus or hanging out with my friends and doing carpool karaoke with my friends off campus. There isn’t really anything to do besides creating your own fun with your friends.”

Koedam would then continue on talking on why most students haven’t been doing anything fun as of late.

“In my opinion, I think it has to do with what happened with the coronavirus,” said Koedam. “I remember one minute I was enjoying spending time with my friends on campus going to all of the basketball games they had planned for the winter season last year to now this year having to see every student go back to their dorms wearing masks and sanitizing themselves to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. It’s a weird feeling seeing most students staying their dorms,” said Koedam.

“If you want to talk about a group of students that has probably had the worse experience being bored so far, it would have to be the athletes,” said Koedam. “We all had to be quarantined for ten days due to the coronavirus. We’ve had to deal with being stuck in our dorms bored out of our minds. It also sucked that we couldn’t interact with our peers at the college. Being stuck in the dorms didn’t help our case when it came to being bored at college,” said Koedam.

Larson would then talk about some of the big events that college would usually through throughout the year, but due to the coronavirus they’ve had to cancel as of late.

“There was a lot of them,” said Larson. “We would typically have at least one event like every week at the college. We were going to do our annual Hungry Hungry Hippos event that we had planned for this year that involved scooters and people. We weren’t able to do our sport activities like dodgeball and volleyball, so instead we are going to do a lot more social distance type activities that involves people not touching a bunch of things,” said Larson.

Koedam would then talk about what he would like to see more of when it comes to not being bored at the college.

“I understand there are certain guidelines when it comes to planning events at the college, but here are some of the ideas I would like to see happen at the college, so the students aren’t so bored this school year,” said Koedam. “I would like to do a bunch of organized events in the green space to make the students feel more active. I would like to see a lot of the assemblies and events the college put on last year, but with the new COVID-19 guidelines added to these events. I would like to see more tournaments be held at the college like beanbags, video games, karaoke, other sport related activities, just something for all of the students at Iowa Lakes to do instead of being in their dorms all day especially during these hard times,” said Koedam.

Koedam would then give his advice to the students who are feeling bored this semester at Iowa Lakes. “Get some friends, create new things to do, and live everyday.”

Larson would then give her advice to the students who are feeling bored on campus this year at Iowa Lakes.

“I would say check your email, because there are virtual events that we will be having too, said Larson.” I know a lot of students don’t want to come out for these face-to-face events, so I encourage all of you to check out those events we have planned. We’ve had comedians, hypnotists, more serious things like sexual abuse or alcohol awareness type of stuff, there is so much that we are going to offer this year for the college students to check out, so always check your email. The other thing I would have to say would be to go around town and check other fun things to do offer campus. There are things like going to the movies, going bowling, taking a hike through Fort Defiance Park, even going to check out the beach in Okoboji, just to name a few. There are many things to do off campus as well.”

As you can see there are many fun things to do not just on campus, but off campus as well. There are many cool things to do like going to like $1 movies at the beginning of the month, going on hikes at Fort Defiance State Park, or even just doing any of the fun events and activities that the students in Student Senate have plan for the college. It may seem like this year may be boring to most of the students, but who says you can’t create your own fun? It may seem like this year will either go by quick or perhaps slow to some people. No matter what happens this year, make sure to go out and have some fun during these interesting times that we are living in.