As of today, there are 47 days until spring break.

That may seem like a lot of time, but it is not considering the sort of things students should be doing during their spring breaks. Spring break should be a time to relax and spend some time with friends and family, but most importantly it should be a time to be productive and get some work done.

This year an Eastern student who only attends school in the fall and spring semester will spend 135 days in class, assuming he or she actually goes to every class. Over the course of four years that adds up to about 540 days in class out of 1,460 days in those years.

Spring break is not a real thing outside of the college world. Just imagine that. With the exception of the student population, Americans work five days a week year round with a set of 11 federally recognized holidays. Students are the only people who have a designated week off to celebrate the new season by doing absolutely nothing.

For a college student, spring break may mean spending a week on some warm beach forgetting about that 10-page term paper due the day he or she returns. For others, spring breaks means spending a week on some warm couch playing video games and forgetting about that 10-page term paper due the day he or she returns.

Time is the most valuable resource we have because we can never get it back. Once those empty spring break days are gone we are never going to get them back.

Some might argue that since now is the only time students have this time off they should use it to sleep and have fun with their friends.

On the other hand, this time off can be used both for that and to accomplish something like that 10-page term paper due the Monday back.

Four study abroad trips are available during the week of spring break; two in Italy, one in Nicaragua and one in Ecuador.

Unfortunately, the deadline for these trips are listed as being in December on the study abroad website. So students may be out of luck there. But there are dozens of other opportunities to make something out of the week off, and now is the best time to start planning for that.

Do some part time work related to your field of study.

Go on one of the dozen Alternative Spring Break trips around the country, and even to Mexico, that the Newman Catholic Center offers.

A seven-day spring break may not seem like a lot of time to get work done, especially with such a long outlook, but remember, when the real world hits, spring break no longer exists.