While they see the weekend as a time to relax, BYU-Hawaii students described feeling an overlying pressure to utilize paradise outside of their normal weekdays.
“Sometimes I feel pressure just because I feel like living here in this great environment and climate, we should take advantage of it and go out and enjoy it as often as we can,” said Camille Garner, a sophomore from Idaho majoring in biochemistry.
Ethan Magalei, a freshman from Laie majoring in business marketing, feels pressure from his non-local friends. “A lot of my friends aren’t from Hawaii, so a lot of their favorite things are to do outdoors things, and I never want to do that.”
Samantha Morey, a freshman from Utah studying information technology, said, “I feel pressure not from students but from people back home. They’re like, ‘You’re in Hawaii you need to live it up.’” Despite the pressure, she stated, “It’s my life. I can do what I want. I’m here for the education, not for the adventures. Not everyone is an adventurous person. I like to just hang out with my friends.”
Garner said, “I think a lot of [pressure] comes from our friends and family back home, wherever home is because we hear a lot of comments like, ‘Oh you go to college in Hawaii. That must be so cool, you must go to the beach all the time.’
“And it’s not like it’s a terrible pressure in our lives, everyone just tells us how lucky we are, and we know that we are, so we just feel we need to take advantage of it. And I think we want to go outside, so we put pressure on ourselves because we know it’s busy during the week.”
However, Nikki Holbrook, a freshman from California majoring in hospitality and tourism management, said, “Personally, I don’t feel pressured just because I’ve always liked going out and doing things since I was little, now I just have the opportunity to do those things.”
Staying indoors on the weekend isn’t an option for Holbrook. “I’ll feel like I’m wasting time because there’s so much to do here, and we have an opportunity to do so many things.”
In contrast, Garner reasoned, “Sometimes I think it’s okay if you need to take a weekend to just sleep in and stay inside and relax. … But on the whole I think we should take advantage of the great area we live in because a lot of people would love to have the opportunity to come here.”
Although Magalei grew up on island and doesn’t feel the need to take advantage of the weekend, he said he understood the desire other students have. He said, “People try to get to the beach as much as possible and you can definitely see that sense of urgency from this being a rare opportunity. They can’t get this at home.”
Having visited foreign countries, Magalei related, “Whenever I go somewhere, I always have a long list of things that I really want to do or see just because I don’t live in those places, so I don’t know for sure if I’d have another opportunity to do those things. So in that small time that I have those opportunities, I want to take it.”
“We spend so much money to come out here to this paradise as people call it,” Morey explained. Attributing the source of pressure to what she called the perfect vacation destination, she reasoned, “[People] feel like the state of Hawaii’s a vacation not a civilization. It’s where you’re living not vacationing.”
In contrast, Magalei said, “The pressure definitely doesn’t come from within because I have very little motivation, but it comes from other good friends that I don’t want to think of me as really lazy or dull.” He said he didn’t do much in high school. “But that changed when I came to college because it’s all new people and you want to make a good impression on your classmates.”
Morey said that it’s good to get out to embrace “what God has created,” but not to get out just because you feel pressure to fit in with the crowd.
Holbrook said, “In some aspects I just want to chill and just have a hangout, but when other students are doing fun and adventurous things, it would make [me] feel like [I’m] not living up to what I could be doing in Hawaii.
“I never think it’s a waste of time to spend time with people and build those relationships, whether you’re being adventurous or hanging out together.”
She opined a big part of the pressure to be active on the weekends is social media. “You see people posting these cool things they did. … You don’t see them when they’re studying and doing their homework.”
Morey stated, “I’m here for school not vacation.” The pressure to have fun can be positive if dealt with the right way, she added, such as being encouraged to explore nature. It is less positive when brought on as something you “have” to do.
Garner explained, “It’s good to get outside, take a mental break, enjoy the world. But if we take it to an extreme, then we might not even be enjoying it anymore and then what’s the point.”
Writer: Hannah Jones