Winter break is upon us. After four months of continuous stress and worrying about raising our GPAs, we trudged through finals and now we're home for what feels like forever. It's great to be home and celebrating the holidays with our families; however, when those are over and we're left to our own vices for the remaining 30 or so days of break, things can get boring. Sure, we can finally do all of those things we wanted to do during the semester but didn't have time for -- working out, reading the book that's been collecting dust on our shelves, catching up with our "home friends" -- but a month is a very, very long time.
In fact, I really think winter break for college students is too long.
I'm sitting here at home, rotting away, not doing anything even remotely educational. By the time we go back to school in a month, I'll have to work myself back up to the level of motivation I was at when the fall semester ended. I'll go in with a refreshed mind, but it'll be hard to get back into the groove of things. If break were shorter, we could finish the school year earlier. Winter break is very long, but the problem is that it's not long enough to do anything extremely productive. Once the holidays are over, you can work a few shifts a week and make some money, but then you have to quit and go back to school. If winter break was shorter and we ended the spring semester earlier instead, we would have more time to work, travel, and do more productive things over the summer before the next academic year starts.
Plus, we have friends at school. And they're probably from all over the state, or even from all over the country. A month is a long time to miss them; amidst the holiday festivities, we probably won't get much of a chance to see them.
All in all, winter break could be a lot shorter. I think college students would simply benefit more from having a shorter winter break and a longer summer break. Getting right into next semester after the holidays not only allows students to retain the motivation they had at the end of last semester more readily, but also allows for a longer summer break where they could do more valuable things with their time.
Since the school calendar is set for months ahead of time, it's very clear that this can't happen anytime soon. However, I think looking further into the benefits of having a shorter winter break is something schools could very much appreciate in the future -- and that students will most likely be very excited about.
