Courtesy | Unsplash
Fall break came too soon this year. It’s not that fall break was too short. It’s that it came before students needed a reset. With Homecoming activities underway and papers and essays due this week, a break a week from now sounds delightful.
This year, fall break fell on Oct. 1-2. It hasn’t occurred this early for at least a decade, according to catalog records. Last year, it was Oct. 9-10. In 2024, it was Oct. 17-18. Three years ago, it was Oct. 19-20. In 2017, what was once called “mid-semester recess” was right before the end of the month, on Oct. 26-27.
I still appreciated fall break this year, even if it was early. It was a great time to catch up on sleep as well as a chance to return home. We’re lucky we got a few days off — schools such as Brigham Young University and Pensacola Christian College do not have a fall break at all.
Hillsdale has a lot to fit into the fall semester: Homecoming, Parents Weekend, CCAs I and II, and of course, fall break. Scheduling must be a complicated nightmare for those who have to do it.
But this year, the timing made it difficult for the break to accomplish what are presumably its major goals.
By early October, students have settled into the semester, but we have not yet reached the point of exhaustion that makes a few days away from campus feel absolutely necessary. We have gotten through the first six weeks, figured out our schedules, and started to establish a rhythm. This year the rhythm of the semester was just beginning to feel normal when the semester stopped for a few days.
Fall break was early enough in the semester that professors had little time to schedule papers and midterms beforehand, but it was late enough that those assignments were already looming when students returned to campus.
And we knew what was waiting for us when we left. Homecoming started on Monday. The papers are still due soon. The exams are still a few days away. And we haven’t even finished reading “Paradise Lost” in Great Books II.
Thanksgiving break still has some stress with upcoming finals, but at least it is a “fresh start” of sorts returning to review sessions. But when fall break comes this early, there is simply more of the semester to worry about. Fall break didn’t feel like a fresh start this year.
A later fall break would allow most professors to schedule papers and midterms before the recess, and students would get a break when the semester has actually begun to wear on them. They might return to campus rejuvenated rather than overwhelmed.
If the goal is to simply give students a couple of days with no classes, then the current schedule works. But if the goal is to restore energy, relieve some of the sleep debt, and give students a real opportunity to step away from school, then the calendar can do better.
Fall break was great, but I wish it had come at a time when I could appreciate it for the break it was supposed to be.
Patrick Matteson is a sophomore studying politics.
