Princeton needs to take academic breaks seriously

Every Princeton student knows the struggle of balancing academics with rest over breaks. Whether it be submitting an essay draft due at the start of fall break or finishing a presentation for the Monday following break, it isn’t uncommon for course deadlines to fall on one of the three formal breaks provided for students during the academic year.

Having deadlines fall during these times adds layers of unnecessary stress to what is deemed one of the few restful times during the semester. On a campus where 70 percent of students consider mental health counseling, the University must make every effort possible to alleviate student stress. This type of work infringes on our allotted rest time. For students’ stress levels, the University must strongly consider restricting assigned and unassigned work to only be due during the weeks that class is in session.

The ongoing mental health crisis on campus has been well documented, and while it is difficult to trace the root causes of the issue, solutions have been posed in this section time and again. Most proposals revolve around expanding access to mental health care, which is an imperative.

But to address such a broad mental health crisis, we must also build in times of true rest to the semester to prevent problems before they arise. Solutions such as lengthening the semester and adding well-being days would facilitate a better environment for student health; however, they would also involve a substantial change to the academic calendar. But by redefining each already-allotted break in the academic calendar to be a “wellness break,” where students would not be expected to complete coursework, the University would use break time that’s already in the schedule to achieve many of the same goals of well-being days or longer semesters.

The administrative burden of such a change is little, and Princeton wouldn’t be alone: Universities such as the University of Pennsylvania have already implemented a policy similar to what I propose.

It’s well-documented that times of true rest are necessary to support mental health. A study by the Harvard Business Review found that working during periods of vacation decreased intrinsic motivation in one’s pursuits. A feature in the American Psychological Association’s Monitor on Psychology also found that burnout can propagate quickly as periods of rest, without the expectation of doing work, are reduced.

Some would argue that Princeton’s calendar already features a time without due dates or classes in the form of reading period. Although reading period is predominately designated as a time for classes to pause while students “consolidate coursework or … extend reading and investigation in accordance with their interests,” faculty may still continue hosting class sessions and assigning work, common for courses like the introductory Chinese sequence or Writing Seminar.

Combined with the upcoming final assignments and assessments following the reading period, this “break” in the academic calendar is one of the least restful times for students. Other “days for rest,” such as Community Care Day, still host classes and are often largely inaccessible for students who happen to have class throughout the day.

Others may worry this change would lead to no change in student stress as the overall workload for the component parts of the semester would remain unchanged. This concern is not supported by present literature. Generally, those with the same workload will experience varying amounts of stress and long-term exhaustion based on times of rest. Those that completed this work throughout the duration of the year without a break faced significantly higher rates of stress and burnout compared to those who completed their work before and after their breaks.

If the University is serious about fixing the mental health crisis on-campus, it must develop preventative and proactive solutions alongside reactive ones. That means taking student well-being and rest seriously. Academic breaks where students have time to recoup from weeks of stress must be as restful as possible. Such a change is not radical — no change would need to be made to the semester schedule — and it has already been put in place at other universities. Although more work is always necessary to address the student mental health crisis, this change would represent a simple, yet beneficial, step in the right direction for the University.

Davis Hobley is a staff Opinion writer for the ‘Prince’ and a member of the Class of 2027 who intends to major in Neuroscience. He hails from Rochester, Mich. and can be reached by email at dh2172[at]princeton.edu or his personal Instagram @davis_20.23.