UW-Madison: Best Places to Take a Break

Time is a precious commodity for students, and usually we learn pretty quickly to take advantage of little breaks during the day to get a little bit ahead on our homework, or to get some assigned reading done. Sometimes, though, if you're stressed out or burned out, it's better to spend a little time doing something totally unrelated to your schoolwork before coming back to it. The UW-Madison campus is huge, and has many fantastic diversions for you to visit if you find yourself with an hour to kill between classes and a need to take a break from your work. Below are descriptions of a few places you might consider visiting when you need a distraction. You might also consider them when entertaining visiting friends or relatives. As a bonus, they're largely free!

Memorial Union Terrace
The obvious choice for a break for many students is the Memorial Union at 800 Langdon St., at the edge of Lake Mendota. While the weather is nice, the Terrace is a pleasant place to sit, enjoy a beverage (preferably a non-alcoholic one, if you're heading back to class) and watch the waves. During winter months, one can instead opt to head inside the Union to Der Rathskeller to read The Onion or watch the snow.

Chazen Museum of Art
The Chazen Museum of Art at 800 University Avenue is a fantastic place to spend an hour or five. The museum is free to the public, and is open Tuesdays through Fridays, 9am to 5pm; on weekends it is open 11am to 5pm. If you have a large backpack or purse with you, you may be asked to put it in one of the lockers (which cost a quarter) while you tour the galleries, or to check it at the security desk. Collections housed in the museum span human history; the oldest piece is a sculpture from Ancient Egypt. The museum's collections of paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, photographs, and other art forms are largely representative of American and European artists, but there are some collections of African and Asian works. Additional diversity is added by touring exhibitions that visit the museum. My favorite sections of the museum are the rooms of displays of ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian artifacts, but there is enough variety is the museum to provide something of interest to any lover of art or history.

Allen Centennial Gardens
The Allen Centennial Gardens at 620 Babcock St. surround Fred House, home to the first four deans of the UW-Madison College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. The elegant gardens, constructed in the late 1980's, cover 2.5 acres, providing plenty of interesting paths and areas to stroll through, such as the English garden, the exotic shrubs garden, and the water garden. The Allen Centennial Gardens are open from dawn until dusk, every day; admission is free

Babcock Dairy Store
Babcock Hall houses a dairy plant used for educational and research purposes. The plant produces a number of dairy products; my favorite happens to be Babcock ice cream, which can be found at a number of restaurants in Madison. To get it straight from the source, though, you can visit the Babcock Dairy Store at 1605 Linden Drive, also located in Babcock Hall. The store is open from 9:30am to 5:30pm on Monday through Friday, and from 10am to 1:30pm on Saturday. Varieties of ice cream sold include Orange Chocolate Chip, Grasshopper, and Blue Moon (my favorite). The plant also produces special flavors on occasion that vary from season to season. In addition to selling ice cream, the Dairy Store sells cheeses and other dairy products produced by the plant, as well as sandwiches.

UW-Madison Geology Museum
Tucked away in Weeks Hall at 1215 W. Dayton Street, the Geology Museum is one of my favorite places on campus. Admission to the museum is free; doors are open from 8:30am to 4:30pm Monday through Friday, and from 9am to 1pm on Saturday. The museum's collection of rocks and minerals includes a rainbow array of specimens from all over planet Earth, and a few that are out of this world (in the meteorite display). In the fluorescent display, you can watch as dull-colored rocks and fossils glow brightly under UV lights. The museum also includes a collection of many different fossils, ranging from tiny trilobites to a 33ft long Edmontosaurus skeleton. Visible through a glass window is the museum's fossil preparation lab, where the curious can watch as paleontology students carefully drill and chip away at rocks to reveal the fossils within.