Here I am sitting in Pulley’s Diner with my roommate on the Saturday before Thanksgiving Break — we are the only ones here. I have only seen two patrons, other than my roommate and me, walk into the diner.
It feels like everyone has already left for break, including many of my campus friends who live out of state.
Everywhere we’ve gone today has that same empty feeling; Miami University dining halls are empty, and Bell Tower is a ghost town. The campus has felt this way since Thursday, and it will not come back to life until the Monday after Thanksgiving.
I would love to be one of those people already home for break — reuniting with my dog, annoying my brother and catching up with my hometown friends. However, I have one class that I need to actually attend because the professor will still be lecturing on new material.
Thanksgiving Break needs to be a full week to make the semester more consistent and the break itself more beneficial and full. Out-of-state students have to book three flights back and forth around this time of year, with the travel costs and stress outweighing the benefits and rest the break should provide. Making it a full week would give students from out of state more time to reunite with their families and friends without missing important class days.
A typical college semester is 15-17 weeks long. Currently, semesters at Miami are 16 weeks, including finals. In our 16-week-long fall semester, we have two days off from class before Thanksgiving break: Labor Day and fall break in the middle of October.
Our semester already starts a week later compared to other universities. A simple way to make Thanksgiving Break more valuable for everyone on campus is to get rid of Fall Break, as it’s only one day and makes travel difficult, and give us the full week of Thanksgiving off.
If we had the full week off, our break would not increase by four to five days. Students would be able to leave that Friday after class and enjoy over a week at home, making the break more fruitful and relaxing for both professors and students.
The longer break would also reduce my personal finals stress levels and probably have a positive impact on finals scores.
Thanksgiving break needs to be longer to avoid the campus feeling like a ghost town.
Jamie Gowans is a sophomore in the Farmer School of Business. She is a marketing major with a history minor. She has been a writer for The Miami Student since her first year.
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