Charles Gray | A Penn-style stay-cation

I admit it: The predominant reason I stayed on campus this spring break was that I'm cheap. I couldn't deal with the $300 plane fares and couldn't handle wasting two days dealing with the delays that characterize our airport system. It's a personal preference.

But staying on campus for the spring break gets a bad rap. After all, most of those who choose to stay on campus do so to work frantically on a thesis or senior project. But over the course of the nine days, I sat back, took a break and learned more about myself and this city than I ever expected.

For that, I partially have my dad to thank. He was on the East Coast for a business trip, so we spent the first two days of break together. He immediately encouraged me to do the obvious: explore Philadelphia. Within a matter of minutes, we were taking the subway to Center City.

Believe it or not, I hadn't gone farther east than 23rd Street since I arrived in August. And per the recommendation of two native Philadelphians, we were dining at the restaurant L'Angolo within the hour; I must say, the food was quite tasty.

And the following day, we ended up going to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which has an amazing permanent collection and a special exhibit on Cezanne.

But my week of self-discovery really began when my dad left. Learning about your surroundings is one thing, but learning about yourself is another. It is truly rare for us to have solitude in our busy lives. In many ways, cell phones and modern technology have prevented us from taking time alone to reflect.

There are obvious advantages to the low-occupancy period on campus. You don't have to wait to do your laundry and there was absolutely no line at ABP.

But the real value of this time is that I could pursue many of the random thoughts that I've ignored in the past. There was no need to worry about exploring these ruminations because there was so much time available.

For instance, I was able to watch the British prime minister's questions on C-SPAN and listened to years of archived Supreme Court proceedings online - because I wanted to.

When Jim Cramer made quite a lot of news this week with his interview on Jon Stewart, I decided to go to the bookstore and take a look at his investment-analysis book. Rather than allowing The Daily Show to take a few clips and tell me that they underlie a person's entire body of work, I was able to evaluate someone's mistakes myself.

And so far during my time at Penn, I've always wanted to explore the possibility of pursuing a dual degree in art history. Since most advisors were on campus during the break, I stopped thinking about the possibility of pursuing this program and instead sought information.

I caught up on many of the tasks that I neglected and kept telling myself to put off for another week. For example, I had not yet installed my printer that I brought from home last August. (I guess the instruction book was too intimidating, especially since I'm not that good with technology.) But I tested the limits of my abilities and installed the printer, and I am now saving 8 cents per page printed.

Now that the break is over, I have to return to concentrated studying without satisfying my frequent, random thoughts and interests. But the break allowed me to engage in these, and that was a vacation in itself.

Maybe I could have undergone this same growth at home or at a beach. But still, it is hard for me to believe that all of the excitement in returning home would have not distracted me.

I'm not saying that people should purposefully look forward to spending their next spring break at Penn. But if you find yourself forgetting to book your flight home and want to save money and time, spending a week at Penn during spring break is not a bad option. You may learn more about yourself and your surroundings.

Charles Gray is a Wharton freshman from La Crescenta, Calif. The Gray Area appears on alternating Tuesdays. His email address is gray@dailypennsylvanian.com.

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