If asking UCLA students what they’re doing for Spring Break was a Family Feud question, the number one answer would be obvious: sleep. I can’t say I’ve conducted an official survey, but I have heard enough friends and peers answer that question with the same hollowed eyes and simultaneously deadpan yet eagerly infused tone. UCLA students are sleeping this Spring Break. And they’re excited about it. Nearly extinct are the days of two-week-long, alcohol-imbued excursions to Cabo. Hello to trudges home where, by the time you’ve slept enough to revive yourself from the ceaseless drudgery of midterms and finals on the quarter system, it’s already time to go back and begin all over again. The truth is, nowadays, we need our Spring Breaks to catch up on much-needed shut-eye.
The quarter system is simply unforgiving. Just when you finish midterms (including midterms parts one and two for many STEM students), it’s practically already time to start studying for finals. It’s virtually impossible to take any breaks once we reach week four of five. It’s nonstop. I know people who literally don’t sleep for days at a time once it hits week five. Those first few weeks are wondrous, though.
That said, Winter Break (the break between Fall and Winter quarters) is so long that you could take an entire summer-length vacation. The ratio between Winter Break and Spring Break is actually baffling. Students actually complain that Winter Break is too long. Whereas Winter Break makes it hard to get back in the swing of school upon returning, students are hardly rested enough after Spring Break to return. An easy solution? Why not just make them the same length? Or at least have Winter only slightly longer to give time for professors the prepare (the supposed rationale for the absurd difference in length). If so, we might also be able to afford a vacation while the sun is actually out.
I love the quarter system. I really do. You can take way more classes, and you’re not stuck in ones you don’t enjoy for long. But the lack of Spring Break is certainly one of its greatest flaws. Luckily, there is a solution. This is my humble petition for change so that we can do more than just sleep over break (not that sleeping isn’t wonderful).