Hannah McLeod, Campus Carrier graphics editor

Some people workout at the gym to de-stress in college. Others journal, binge-watch tv shows or spend their evening napping. I run a farm. A level fifty-two Hay Day farm.

Hay Day is more than a game — it’s an experience. I downloaded the app my junior year of high school, unaware of the addiction to come. I convinced all of my friends to get it and add me so we could create a neighborhood together. Before I knew it, we had accumulated over twenty people to join our group. It had even become so common amongst our class that the teacher joined our group. Ever since, my addiction has grown stronger.

Hay Day is a perfectly balanced mix of responsibility and farming nonsense. It gives you just enough to do so you feel productive, yet requires absolutely zero real-life skill. There are no deadlines, no surprise pop quizzes — just the farm, your cows and a never-ending supply of wheat.

Unlike doom-scrolling through TikTok for three hours, Hay Day gives a sense of accomplishment. You’re not wasting time — you’re managing a business. You’re making important business-altering decisions, like whether to sell eggs at the roadside shop or save them for future pancake production. It’s like an economics lesson. I couldn’t tell you what was going on in my economics class, but I do know that right now my farm has a high demand for syrup but my supply of sugarcane is low and that I get more profit from selling corn than I do wheat. 

Hay Day also teaches valuable time management skills. You may think setting alarms for your 8 a.m. class is responsible, but have you ever set a 3 a.m. timer so you don’t forget to check in before your boat leaves? In college, you’ve probably had to prioritize assignments based on urgency and deadlines. That’s nothing compared to deciding whether to spend your bolts to upgrade your barn or your nails to upgrade your silo. Hay Day teaches you to learn the art of patience. Some crops take hours to grow, like chili peppers and tomatoes, and unless you’re willing to pay with diamonds (which you’re most likely hoarding for something important), you must wait. What really builds patience is waiting six hours for wool.

At the end of the day, college work is stressful enough. Assignments pile up, deadlines hang over our heads like rainy day umbrellas and sometimes you need an escape. Hay Day provides just that — a fulfilling, low-pressure world where your biggest problem is eggs costing too much. Actually, it probably doesn’t fix the egg problem.