Give me a break

Crunch time hits everyone at different points in the semester. For some it’s midterms. For others it’s reading period. Still others suffer through it on a weekly basis, say, every Wednesday when problem sets are due.

Mine struck this Sunday. Two weeks before winter break, that overwhelming snowball of neglected work has begun rolling down Stress Mountain. There’s no appreciable break in sight, despite the fact that vacation is a mere fortnight away. As the days of our so-called holiday draw nearer, my resentment of our whacked-out schedule increases. I should smell freedom, not caffeine. Thanks to Princeton’s hallowed, unique tradition of administering exams and collecting papers after winter break, the advent of the holiday season is often unpleasant and distressing. A few years ago, Harvard changed its calendar, moving its fall exams before break. Clearly, Princeton is not going to modify its calendar just because Harvard did. We should modify our calendar because we are the only school left maintaining this exceptionally painful timetable.

My friends from colleges all over the U.S. cherish their winter breaks as an important mental recovery times. I approach mine by steeling myself against the looming phantoms of essays and tests that will haunt my three weeks off with a vengeance. Thanks to the peculiarities of our break system, either the days immediately preceding vacation or vacation itself turn into a desperate attempt to get my act together. If break plans consist of internships, community service projects or travel, the weeks before and after are a frantic scramble to churn out all the essays and readings and projects you are supposed to get a handle on over the holiday.

Many students who go home for break either spend it studying or divvy their time up evenly between having fun and feeling guilty for not being more productive. From post-break conversations, I gather that the vast majority of students opt for the guilt option, meaning that they are in the same strained boat as the interns and travelers when everyone returns to campus. No matter how students choose to structure their time, the shadow of finals taints breaks across the spectrum. The “free time” between December and January is just another headache-inducing piece in the puzzle of how to end fall semester with one’s grades and sanity in a reasonable state.

Flipping the exam-break order should not be difficult. Shifting fall semester two weeks earlier is a relatively painless option. Princeton’s academic year starts later than other schools. Summer is an excellent chance to decompress from the school year, but one of the reasons it’s necessary to drag the summer out for so long is the lack of a decent break in the middle of the academic calendar. Intersession is our only genuine vacation during the year — a random, awkward week that would be much more useful tacked onto two more weeks of real break during the time our friends from home have off. If our classes started two weeks earlier, our final papers and exams could take place as soon as classes end. Not only would this turn our break into a period of real, much-needed relief, but it would also get rid of the deadly gap between taking courses and taking the tests that make up a very significant percentage of our course grades.

Supporters of the current calendar rightfully point out the benefits of our exceptionally long summer break. We have more vacation time in total than other schools, which translates into more time for extended internships and language programs. This is convenient, but on the whole unnecessary; students from other colleges manage to spend their summers in productive, exciting ways without the extra few weeks. Moreover, the fact that Princeton students tend to dedicate summer break to work and study further underlines the need for a real vacation. Our calendar reminds me of a student who doesn’t sleep properly for weeks and then goes into crash mode, staying a full day or so in bed to make up for their sleep deprivation. This is not a healthy way of organizing one’s time. Ultimately, it doesn’t work: The student may recover for a day or so, but his overall performance — in school, in extracurriculars, in life generally — would be much better if he stuck to a schedule with regular sleeping hours.

This break I’m going abroad with some friends. We’re planning on backpacking, which means in the process of our resolutely minimalist packing, laptops are a low-priority item. We are almost certainly not going to get any work done, and we are sharply aware of the fact. We have to be; whatever is not completed over break must be worked on before or after. I begrudge every moment spent poring over my Google calendar trying to work out a study plan when I should be preparing for my trip. I am more than willing — I am eager, I am hungry to sacrifice two weeks of summer vacation for a normal, stress-free winter break. Working through academics at Princeton frequently feels like wrestling with an enormous, invincible, many-headed monster. Winter break should be a respite, not the apex of the battle.

Tehila Wenger is a sophomore from Columbus, Ohio. She can be reached at twenger@princeton.edu.