I’m just a writer with no scientific evidence suggesting that maybe one three-day weekend a term would go a long way to reduce stress for students.
It’s Monday night after a long exhausting weekend. This morning, more than usual I wished I didn’t have to go to class. And the thing is, students all over the country other than us, didn’t go to class today. It is President’s Day after all, a national holiday where we supposedly celebrate the Presidents, I think.
But we don’t have today off, just like we don’t have MLK Day off, or Veterans Day. And honestly, I don’t begrudge Knox that too much. Our terms are a short ten weeks, meaning classes only meet maybe 30 times. That sounds like a lot, but it adds up to less than 40 hours of class time. Our professors need every hour of that to convey all their material.
Snow days are up to a professor’s discretion – discretion that I’m not always sure takes student safety into account and generally leads to having class regardless of the weather. This too I can understand because of that packed schedule, professors can’t afford to let us off.
And I suppose, we do get a day off a term. Fall Institute Day in fall, Day of Dialogue in winter, and of course, Flunk Day in spring. But those days still have expectations.
Skipping Fall Institute or Day of Dialogue still leaves me with a vague sense of wrongdoing, like there’s somewhere I’m supposed to be that I’m not. And Flunk Day of course, while fun, is not relaxing in the slightest.
This leaves Knox students without something that I think makes a big difference to keeping your head on straight for ten weeks of school at a time: random days off.
I know, I know, we have weekends, and sometimes class gets canceled, and sometimes students just skip. But there is something so special, so freeing, about having a day when you’re normally in class, completely free from school, completely free from responsibility.
Especially when that day is on a Monday or a Friday. And that brings me to my true point. I miss three-day weekends. I miss that extra day of fun, or sleep, or even chores. That extra day makes me feel like I don’t have to pack all three of those things into 48 hours.
Three-day weekends make me feel like I can breathe, like I have the flexibility to choose what I want to do for a bit, and maybe I want to choose to do nothing. Or maybe I want to choose to go out of town, to go home.
Three-day weekends are a breath of fresh air in a packed academic term, a reminder to stop and slow down, remember that you’re a person too, not just something that goes from class to class, activity to activity.
Basically, I’m pretty sure a three-day weekend would cure all my depression and anxiety.
But I digress. I’m just a writer with no scientific evidence suggesting that maybe one three-day weekend a term would go a long way to improve mental health on campus.
