Marie Sykes, masykes@ursinus.edu
If there is anything the whole campus can agree on, it is that break days are no substitution for spring break, especially with this semester seeming like there is always some big project coming up after every break day. On March 30, the day before the second-to-last break day, the Ursinus College Student Government took the time to reach out to both students and faculty to address the issue, telling students that they know we are burnt out, but we need to tell our professors this, and telling the faculty that they need to stop assigning work with deadlines on/after the break day. Has this helped?
At least in my experience, it has helped the faculty reach out, with professors asking us about break days and assignments in both the physics and mathematics departments and even moving some deadlines back. Still, break days have proven to be no replacement for the week that we all missed back in March. With looming deadlines on Friday when the break day is Tuesday, it can be hard not to do any homework. And then, the times when you may opt out of doing homework, the random day off still makes it hard to focus the rest of the week (that is ignoring the fact that many of us still have lab meetings on our break days, which there is no getting out of).
Ultimately, break days have been a better solution to have no extended break than last semester’s no breaks at all, but they still leave us yearning for a true and proper spring break.