A Snowy Campus Is A Better Campus - Deal With It

It’s tough being a contrarian sometimes, especially when it comes to something as all-encompassing as the weather.

I’ll spare you from the numerous awful jokes about the eight months of winter and all that, because I’ve heard them all before. They’re not funny. Trust me. They only intensify when I tell people that I actually like winter. Not when it’s -20 or anything like that, but I really enjoy winter sports, and just the whole general aesthetic of winter. Therefore, I’m about to put forth an extremely unpopular list: why campus is actually better in the wintertime. Please don’t hate me that much.

The general aesthetic of Winter is far superior to Summer: 

Forget about the cold for one second, the whole look of Winter around campus is just great. Everything looks so clean, so peaceful. Don’t get me wrong, campus looks nice during the summer as well, but Winter has a different, more relaxed vibe. The snow mutes everything around it, and just relaxes me to no end. Any time I’m having a rough day on campus I intentionally take the long way to wherever I’m going and just choose to walk outside in the snow.

The alternative to not having snow at this time of year is awful: 

For those of you screaming about how snow is awful, I have one suggestion: remember where we live. Trees and plants don’t bloom in the winter, and they’re mostly brown and dead (unless they coniferous), and that just looks bad. You’re telling me you’d rather stare at a patch of dead, brown grass than a nice clean white patch of snow? If you do tell me that sincerely, I’d just tell you that you were wrong, and end the conversation.

Just imagine how cool it would be to have a snowball fight with your friends on campus: 

Can’t do that during the Summer, unless you store some snow in your freezer over the Winter, but who wants to go to that sort of trouble?

The snow muffles your footsteps if you want to sneak up on someone: 

Try doing this in Fall with all those pesky crunchy leaves around. Oh wait, you can’t. Check and mate.

You could bring a sled/toboggan to campus and you wouldn’t look out of place: 

I don’t want to live in a world where I’d be frowned upon for doing something like this.

You can drink that hot beverage and take full advantage of its warming properties: 

There’s a certain satisfaction I get after walking outside on a brisk winter day, then going inside, ordering a hot beverage, and letting it warm me up. Hot beverages always strike me as weirdly incongruous during the Summer – they don’t really fit for me because you’re already warm. So winter allows them to do the job they were born to do.

Even if you hate the weather, it’s character building: 

That walk you take from CAB to Van Vilet for class three times a week? It’s made all the sweeter when you finish it in the snow. Yes, the walk in spring might be easier, but it doesn’t help you grow as a person, there’s no sense of accomplishment.

Furthermore, if you hate the weather, it makes you appreciate Summer all the more: 

I love chocolate, but I don’t eat it every day. Summer loses its appeal if it’s year round. That’s why Winter is important to even the most tropically-minded Edmontonian – it helps you appreciate Summer all the more.

And there you have it: all the reasons to appreciate snow on campus. If I can just make one person see the light, then I’ll consider it a job well done.  

Zach - YouAlberta Contributor

Zach is a sixth-year Sociology major with a creative writing minor. Scared of being a real adult and being awake before noon. He can be found either eating, sleeping, meandering in the river valley, or watching a Toronto Blue Jays game. He misses having long hair because now none of his hats fit properly.