How students spend their summer in Madison

During the school year, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s campus is filled with the neverending buzz of over 52,000 students. When summer comes, many students leave for home, but for the thousands that decide to stay, the summer months are about staying busy and making campus a home-away-from-home. 

For some students, that means enrolling in summer classes. Peter Spiegel, a rising senior, is enrolled in an educational policy studies class called “Democracy and Education” to fulfill a general education requirement. In the years since the COVID-19 pandemic, about one–third of UW–Madison students have enrolled in at least one summer class, the majority of those classes being online. 

“I just hadn’t gotten to it yet so I decided to take it over the summer,” Spiegel said. Required classes are often taught during the summer as a way for students to get credit for classes that fill up quickly or are hard to schedule.

These summer classes take place over multiple windows of time, with the most popular being the four and eight-week sessions from June to August. Spiegel’s educational policy studies class starts in early June, but for now, Spiegel is working at the food kiosks at Union South. 

Over the summer, students work a variety of jobs on campus. Nathan Wagner, a rising senior double majoring in physics and math, is working as a research assistant for two physics professors researching quantum computers. 

“Right now, there’s a lot of interesting design challenges with quantum computers,” Wagner said. “It’s a very fast-growing, competitive field.”

Valentine Schneider, a rising junior, is an operations intern for Student Orientation, Advising and Registration (SOAR), working as a part of the team that introduces admitted students to campus. 

Schneider said she also hopes to start teaching cello lessons this summer to bring in a little bit of extra money. As a music performance major, Schneider said they plan to play for an hour on weekdays and three hours on weekends to avoid getting rusty. 

“It’s one of those skills that you can’t really take off,” Schneider said. “I mean, you can, but you run the risk of — between semesters — of either not advancing or regressing.”

As a student, summer offers a lot of extra free time. While Schneider uses that time to keep on top of her cello practice, Wagner said he is planning to start a hydroponic farm this summer. Wagner said that he had been planning the hydroponics — the process of growing plants using a water–based nutrient solution instead of soil — since he took a horticulture class last fall, but only now can dig into the hobby with his free time this summer.

Overall, the defining characteristic of being on campus during the summer is that you don’t see nearly as many students.

“It’s much emptier in the summer,” Wagner said. “It’s just a different feel.” 

Study spots that would usually be packed during the school year are vacant in the summer. The swell of students between classes is gone, and according to Spiegel, there aren’t many people coming to Union South either. 

“During the semester, we’d have lines out the door at Ginger Root and Cantina around noon,” Spiegel said. “And now, maybe you'll get 15 people throughout the entire day.”

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