By Katie Wilson
With the holiday months upon us, many University of Maryland students are looking forward to going home and taking some time off of school. With no breaks between Labor day in early September until Thanksgiving recess in late November, many students have been feeling burnt out and after a long semester.
Some BIG10 universities incorporate a small Fall Break in October, which UMD does not offer. This amounts to five of the fourteen schools in the league who have two days off to split up the fall drag of classes. These breaks are sometimes referred to as mental health days, where students have a chance to unwind during a busy semester.
“Classes are very demanding and sometimes just put a lot of stress on the student. So there are times when they definitely need a break. And sometimes that weekend isn’t enough because during the weekend, they’re doing more homework or studying,” said mechanical engineering freshman Daniel Jaurez.
UMD does have one “reading day” the day before each finals week begins, along with three other BIG10 schools. However, these are meant to be used for study days rather than vacation days.
For Thanksgiving, half of the BIG10, including UMD, has the Wednesday before the holiday through the weekend without classes. Four schools have the entire week of Thanksgiving off and three only have Thursday and Friday off of school during the holiday week. The three days off for Thanksgiving can make it difficult for out-of-state students to travel home and back to campus again without skipping the Tuesday and Monday classes.
“I definitely would appreciate longer breaks especially as an out-of-state student who also didn’t have a fall break, like many other schools have, especially in the year of COVID, where we spent so much time at home it’s a big adjustment of not being able to go home for three months,” said journalism freshman Eli Cohen.
UMD has the longest winter break of the BIG10, at 33 days between the end of finals and the start of the spring semester. This is so the university can fit in a Winter semester for students who want to take a class in just three weeks. The University of Michigan has the shortest, with only 18 days off because the university is on the trimester system.
“I would fully support decreasing the length of winter breaks so that we could have a couple three day weekends during the semester. I would definitely go home to see my family more often, just because I’d have more time to spend at home with them. And currently because we don’t have three day weekends, I don’t have as much of an incentive to go home for just a day or two,” said economics and government and politics freshman Ronak Tallur.
Every school in the BIG10 does have a full week off for Spring Break along with Labor Day off. Schools who are in session on Martin Luther King Jr. Day don’t have instruction. The Ohio State University is the only BIG10 school that cancels classes for Veterans Day and Indigenous People’s Day.
UMD’s break pattern favors a longer Winter Recess than scattered breaks throughout the school year and Thanksgiving.
Graphics by Katie Wilson
Stories Beneath the Shell 