One of the best things about coming to college is getting to decide when and where you have classes. At first glance, it seems like a perfect world, especially to college students living on their own and staying up late. Not a morning person? Take later classes. Simple, right?
It seems that increasingly courses are held primarily on a Tuesday/Thursday or Monday/Wednesday schedule. There are a limited amount of time slots available for these courses, which makes planning miserable and enrolling even more difficult.
Have you ever considered that Professors of these courses also get this time off from teaching? Professors can spend their time doing research for independent projects, writing books or even going out to bars and events (a friendly reminder that professors have lives outside of work…).
Many students proclaim that the weekend starts on Thursday, and plan their schedules to avoid any Friday classes at all. Three-day weekends every week, starting with Thirsty Thursday, what could be better?
Even if courses meet Monday/Wendesday/Friday, attendance on Friday classes is often slim. Last semester, one of my professors commented in the wake of the Rolling Stone article that there was a faculty meeting that discussed this overwhelming absence of Friday classes. It’s easy to connect here that a lack of Friday classes extends the partying time for students.
Although I often dread attending Friday classes, I think it gives structure to this final day of the week. It is a little extra motivation to do some homework or catch up on reading, rather than treating it like a “relaxation” day of the weekend. There seems to be a trend of the University giving up Fridays to the weekend, but are there larger implications for this?
The college experience trains us as individuals to think critically and thoughtfully, to live on our own, to become responsible young adults ready and prepared for the real world. There are countless of life experiences that we learn through being students beyond the classroom.
Consider post-graduation. The Monday through Friday 9-to-5 workweek that we all want to avoid. Most students have already experienced this through summer internships, and it is quite the eye-opener. It’s likely that most of us, although we try to deny it now, will end up working a 9-to-5 job. High School, a routine with long-hours of sitting, trains us with the attention spans and energy levels needed to function in such a workforce. But years after high school, with a schedule accustomed to a four-day workweek, are we being effectively trained for this lifestyle if we skip out on Fridays every week?