Pro: Time to feast
By: Samantha Neff
Thanksgiving falls around the time of year where college students are stressed about their finals and the end of the semester.
The holiday is an essential time for students to spend time with their loved ones and take a break from the stress.
Students and professors deserve a week off, instead of two days, for Thanksgiving break so they can relax with their family or friends.
According to smartasset.com, 95% of Americans spend the holidays with their family.
After Thanksgiving break, students have about two weeks or less until their finals begin.
A week off could provide time for students to study for exams or catch up on school work that they’ve missed throughout the semester.
According to an article by Scientific American, relaxation is important for a student’s success.
“Downtime replenishes the brain’s stores of attention and motivation, encourages productivity and creativity, and is essential to both achieve our highest levels of performance and simply form stable memories in everyday life.”
Most people can agree that it is easier to get through finals after they have had a few days to relax and review schoolwork. However, if they only have two days to do so, they miss out on time they could spend with their loved ones.
Professors and students also are not given enough time to travel.
If a family member lives in another state, a student would have to miss one or two days of school simply to make it on time.
Unfortunately, if they aren’t able to travel then some are left with no choice but to spend the holiday by themselves.
While many could argue that most employees do not get a week off from work, they are also not expected to prepare for upcoming projects and essays during their break like students are.
Attendance in the classrooms on the Monday and Tuesday following the weekend after Thanksgiving is already low due to students and professors taking a week long break anyways.
Students and professors would benefit from having a week off for Thanksgiving break so that they are able to get more done and be less stressed when returning to school.
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Con: Pass me the books
By: Maja Losinska
Thanksgiving tradition has almost always been a definition of delicious home cooked meals and time spent with family.
However, for some students, Thanksgiving break is a waste of time.
A week off of school for the holiday would be beyond excessive, especially when the semester is nearly coming to an end.
Usually teachers would assign projects or homework during the break anyway because of the loss of class time.
This makes it almost impossible for students to relax because they have to think about their grades and assignments.
It is often easy to forget the material learned from the previous week when there’s a gap in between.
If time was given for the holiday, teachers may find it difficult to get through the entire curriculum right before finals. When students get back from the break, class would have to be spent reviewing and re-teaching material instead of moving forward.
It is harder to adjust to a normal routine after a week of doing nothing. A break would simply hurt students in an educational way.
A student’s brain remains charged and in the “learning mode” if school continues to be open for the rest of the week leading up to Thanksgiving.
While spending time with family can be great, it can also be overwhelming.
Family members reel off college and personal life questions that nobody is ready to answer. Almost everyone can relate to having to sit through awkward conversations about the future with an aunt or cousin and thinking of ways to change the topic.
Not going home for Thanksgiving is also beneficial for a student’s budget.
Thanksgiving week is one of the busiest time to travel. According to the American Automobile Association, about 4.5 million Americans are predicted to travel on plane during the holiday break.
Not only are airports jam-packed, flights can be expensive and are usually delayed, which can cause problems and be time consuming for some students.
With so many other people going home for the holiday, driving home could take longer than necessary because of traffic.
In the U.S., Thanksgiving always falls on a Thursday. With school being closed on Friday and then having the weekend following that, students already have a considerable amount of time to rest. There is no need to have the whole week off in addition to that.
