The leaves are changing, the weather is cooling, and the stress is building; it’s fall, everyone! What does fall mean to you? Probably pumpkin flavored and scented everything, the color orange, Halloween, cute outfits, and Fall break…. oh…. wait…. we don’t have a Fall break. This is unfortunately true for The University of Akron students. While all of our friends from high school and other colleges get to relax for a full week, sipping on their pumpkin spice lattes and curled up with blankets at home, us Zips are sitting in class. But why, you ask. Why must we go 16 weeks straight while all of our other college friends get to take a breather? The answer to that question is not clear, but the reasons we should have a Fall break are simple and obvious.
College is a stressful time. It is rare that you’ll find yourself in a week without a test, paper, hours of homework, or multiple quizzes. More than likely, these will hit you all on the same week. If you do happen to find your planner empty of assignments, prepare yourself because the storm is surely right around the corner. The stress of college life can definitely weigh you down. The never ending workload never seems to lighten, and your ‘free’ weekends seem as busy as your weekdays, with the studying and preparing for the next week. It is easy to become overloaded with stress, no matter how well you do with time management. A Fall break would be the perfect way to relieve some of that stress. A full week of rest after midterms would be just enough to refresh our minds and bodies to be ready for the rest of the semester. Instead, we have 16 weeks of nonstop classes that are sure to run us down.
In the springtime we have a week long break, so why isn’t that offered to us in the fall? What makes Spring semester so different to allow that week-long break, that so many of us look forward to? Spring break holds so many opportunities: chances to relax, go on vacation with friends and family, work to earn some extra money, mission projects, and even study abroad. When a Spring break offers so many great opportunities, why would we deny our students (and faculty) that chance in the fall?
Fall semester includes the national holiday of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a holiday meant to be spent with our family and friends, eating good food and being thankful for those in our lives. It would make sense to cut out Fall break if Thanksgiving was given a few extra days, but Thanksgiving break is very short. The University closes at 5:00 PM Wednesday night, the day before Thanksgiving. This leaves little to no time for traveling home. Trying to book a Wednesday night or Thursday morning plane ticket home would be nearly impossible and expensive for those that live far away. If you don’t live within driving distance of the University, the likelihood of you spending it with your family dwindles. Instead you’ll be stuck on the nearly empty campus eating from whatever dining options are open and the food you have stored in your room. The only way to make up for this inconvenience is to either extend Thanksgiving break or include a Fall break to the semester calendar.
Fall break has the potential to be beneficial to all students, faculty, and staff members, but unfortunately we are not afforded this opportunity. Fall break would help relieve stress, provide opportunities for growth, and give students the chance to hit the ground running the second half of the semester. It seems like an easy choice, so let’s hope that in the near future that choice is made and put into action.