Summer break is almost here, much to the relief of students everywhere.

There are those who go home to rejuvenate, and then there are those who stay in Ames. Those who choose to stay on campus over the summer, though, have an important question they need to find an answer to: What is there to do in Ames when school’s out?

“This town really is dead over the summer,” said Tim Kleinschmidt, senior in aerospace engineering. “I mean, there’s bowling and stuff like that, just like the rest of the year, but there’s no one here.”

Lack of people in the summer is a big impediment to having fun. The difference in numbers between terms is very noticeable – there were 23,709 students registered as taking classes in Ames during the spring semester last year compared with 9,076 taking classes that summer.

Of course, that’s only the people taking classes. Some people stay here to work also, like Casey Redding, senior in marketing. She said she has been here every summer since coming to Iowa State, working and taking classes.

“Even with all that stuff to do, when I was finished with it, there was just a lot of hanging out with friends,” she said. “Something that I liked to do was play in the summer intramural sports, but more people really need to get involved with that.”

Some students are concerned that Ames doesn’t offer a wide enough variety of activities during the summer months.

“Think about it. This town doesn’t have a whole lot of people around it usually. What could we get here that the city would see to be a good investment?” Kleinschmidt said. “I mean, you can only play Halo for so long before it gets boring, but I don’t think we’ll be getting a lot of entertainment options here.”

It also doesn’t help that the bastions of activity throughout the school year – the bars – don’t have the same hours during the summer.

“Most of the bars are only open from Wednesday or Thursday to Saturday. They also open later in the night, and Buck Burgers doesn’t happen nearly as much, which makes me sad,” Redding said.

Despite the general lack of people and activities, Redding prefers Ames to other locations and feels “everyone should stay away from home for a while.”

Kleinschmidt prefers to stay here because of the difficulty in getting a job in his hometown and finding someone to sublease his room here.

When it comes down to it, if people are staying in Ames for the summer, they might want to make sure they have at least a few friends staying here as well. If not, a very long summer could be in store.

“Last summer, I had this construction job. I remember that after the hardest day of work, I got home, took a short nap, made some dinner and then started watching TV,” Kleinschmidt said. “After an hour, someone called and asked if I wanted to do anything. I was damn tired and sore, but I was so bored that I said, ‘I’ll be right there.'”