As thousands of students return to their hometowns for a month away from Iowa City, around 300 students will opt to stay in the University of Iowa residence halls over the winter break.

These students are often international students who cannot necessarily afford transportation home. Many are also students establishing Iowa residency for tuition purposes. These students are required to work 20 hours per week for a year to attain residency status.

Students in the residence halls over break have to fend for themselves when it comes to food and entertainment. The two dining halls on campus, Hillcrest and Burge, are closed for the break.

“It’s simply a numbers thing, to feed fewer than 300 people would cost an atrocious amount of money for us to pass on to students, so it’s a money thing,” said Kate Fitzgerald, the director of Residence Life.

The on-campus food options over the break are the River Room and Union Station in the IMU. They will be open during the week, but students’ meal plans will have expired. They will have to pay for their meals in the River Room rather than using a meal swipe.

During Thanksgiving break, the UI held a Thanksgiving dinner for students who stayed on campus. However, there will be no such holiday events for winter break. Fitzgerald said this was simply because no one celebrates one common holiday during this time.

When classes are in session, several organizations on campus, such as the Campus Activities Board, hold events to entertain students, but over winter break, those events are minimal.

“Typically, we partner with the men’s basketball program, and they will give us a bunch of tickets for the home games for students that are here,” Fitzgerald said. “Other than that, we don’t do much of anything.”

She said that because most of the students work during break, there’s rarely much going on in the residence halls.

“You walk through the residence halls, and it’s very quiet; there’s hardly anyone in them,” Fitzgerald said. “If you assume we have 6,000 students and 300 stay, that really spreads them out over the 11 halls.”

Lucy Langmack, a UI freshman establishing Iowa residency, will be in the residence halls for three weeks over break.

“I’m working basically every day, but I’ll probably be pretty bored and have no life for three weeks,” she said.

Emily Vershaw, also a UI freshman establishing residency, looks forward to having some time to herself while she is in the halls during break.