Free, noncredit courses that meet once a week during Winter Term allow students to share specific hobbies and interests with their peers.
If you’ve ever wanted to pick up dancing, skateboarding or even learn more about the ecological importance of spiders, look no further than this year’s Burst the Bubble courses.
Burst the Bubble is an on-campus program that runs all three weeks of Winter Term. It allows every student at Elon the chance to join or facilitate a course of their interest. It has been growing since 2007 and provides the student-teachers involved a budget to cover the cost of supplies necessary for their course. There are no set requirements in terms of how student-teachers conduct the lesson plans for their course. It is all up to their own creative direction.
“My goal for the class was to be more chill and dive into the creativity of crochet, not necessarily to create milestones for the students,” Stephanie Land ’24, senior instructor of an intermediate crochet course, explained. “It was aimed to explore more about crochet, and just hang out with friends.”
Land immersed herself more in the hobby of crochet within the last year, teaching her mother the craft over winter break and creating gifts for friends and family.
“I mainly just thought, ‘This is just something I think is fun that I want to share with other people,’” Land explained. “I just wanted to have a space where we were all hanging out and crocheting.”
Land is not the only student teaching a crochet-focused course this Winter Term. She is accompanied by Ella Pierman ’25, who is teaching a Beginners Guide to Crochet course for Burst the Bubble.
“Over one summer, my family did a cross-country trip to Utah, but we all got Covid and couldn’t fly back,” Pierman said. “We had to drive from Utah to Florida, so my mom and I just picked up some crochet hooks, some yarn and that’s how I learned to make just a basic blanket in three days.”
A common theme from Burst the Bubble courses is that they tend to inspire students who took a course as a learner to become a teacher the following year in an area they’re familiar with.
“I did a Burst the Bubble course last year: A Beginners Guide to Baking and Cake Decorating. It was so fun,” Pierman explained. “I got really into crocheting over the summer so I thought that would be cool thing to teach this year.”
The low-stress, carefree and inclusive environment that Burst the Bubble promotes helps to foster connection between students with common interests. It keeps a light of positivity during the weeks of winter at Elon and encourages the formation of new hobbies for students.
More information about this year’s courses can be found on the Burst the Bubble website.