UMW’s holiday break schedule inconveniences students

by THOMAS JACKSON

Associate Editor

Thanksgiving break is a time for rest, relaxation, and, for the fortunate ones, fun memories with friends and family. For students across the country, especially those of us in college, Thanksgiving break also acts as the flagship for exams—foreshadowing the upcoming sleepless nights and impending doom that are associated with this time of year. 

Unfortunately for smaller Virginia universities, Mary Washington especially, the positioning of break and finals week, as well as the length of the actual break, is more of a burden on students than a freedom. 

The biggest issue in this case is the length of the break. Mary Washington students started break on the Wednesday of Thanksgiving week, giving three days of class off. Schools like Virginia Tech, Virginia Commonwealth University and James Madison University all had break start that Monday, giving students nine straight days off to prepare for their end of classes. 

For anyone saying nine days is too many, there is definitely an argument to be made there, but the true injustice lies in the Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving week. There is often a mixture of attitudes associated with how professors should handle those two days before break. Some professors opt to outright cancel classes or at least have a class that doesn’t cover content so heavily. The other side of the spectrum is professors who make those classes necessary, sometimes having content or assignments that are essential to the final. I’m not making an argument that professors should always cancel or always have class; the issue is when a lot of the class doesn’t show up, the choice is usually out of their hands. 

In the three years I’ve been here to witness the week of Thanksgiving break, there is a good chance I haven’t had a class without over 80% of students missing. In these instances, would it be better to still have the class and leave the absent students behind, or change the class and have the students’ attendance that did show up be almost meaningless?

A gripe with this is that students don’t think any work should be done over before or over break. As a student paying for college, doing any work over break is your prerogative, but some professors expect a lot of their last non-final assignments due the week after break. Therefore, by giving the entire week off to work on assignments, students don’t have to worry about getting back so soon or doing the work that comes with any families celebrating Thanksgiving instead of schoolwork.  

The second piece of the puzzle is the relationship between break and finals week. For example, the University of Virginia has the same Thanksgiving break, so its problems should be the same. UVA, however, was wise enough to push back its examination period to the week after, giving students two weeks to end classes and prepare for finals. 

Unfortunately, Mary Washington’s schedule is not unique in this regard. Looking at some of the smaller schools in the state, colleges like Randolph-Macon, JMU, Old Dominion University and Longwood all have the same Thanksgiving break and finals week as us. This leads to all students having the same issue of what to do during break. Leaving early or staying for the two days of classes, doing heavy work during break or putting it off for the last week of classes, and for anyone with work due right after break, getting all of that done while still trying to make time for the season. 

A common misconception I hear when the topic of Thanksgiving break is brought up is that smaller universities have smaller breaks more often, compared to bigger universities having bigger breaks less often. This is just flat-out not true. Comparing academic schedules, UMW starts the same week as most of the aforementioned schools, ends the same week as most and has the exact same breaks as other schools, with the only exception being the shorter Thanksgiving break.

Traffic and trying to coordinate coming back to school can lead to unnecessary stress for students and families alike. That is also just for in-state students who can comfortably drive home for break. Anyone having to take a plane, train or automobile across Virginia state lines will have to figure out any tickets they may need and when they need to leave in order to make it home on time. Due to this, the best course of action would start with having every university give the week off, which gives students time to pack anything they may need and make it home in time to do work. Using staggered breaks to let students leave when they want could really help universities. Whether it’s leaving during the actual week or leaving sometime over the weekend. 

Looking at all of these parts as a whole, having a shorter break followed by only a week of class before finals leads to students being more stressed than necessary. It is also extremely unfair when compared to how much time other universities get in the same state.