Semester breaks don’t make sense

How many people truly enjoy having to rush off for Thanksgiving? How many enjoy returning from Thanksgiving for the short two weeks of classes? Attentions are elsewhere, the anticipation (and workload) of the end of the semester overwhelms everything else. These last three calendar weeks of the semester exemplify everything that is wrong with the fall academic schedule here at IU.\nFirst, the lack of a substantive break (or even a simple three-day weekend) in the fall semester means that everyone is at the end of their ropes come Thanksgiving. This means that people are likely to just write off the two days of class before the break and make it a full week of recess. Third, upon returning from Thanksgiving, having had their fill of food and family, students’ attention spans never quite recover as the countdown to winter break starts in a meager two weeks. These last two weeks of the semester, when all should be their most productive, are reduced to attempts to keep focused on immediate goals rather than the impending semester break and holidays.\nAs a solution to all of these problems, I propose that we begin the semester in the first week of August. We can then proceed to have a full-week break at mid-semester as well as finishing the semester before Thanksgiving. This would mean no two weeks at the end of the semester, no more two days of class the week of Thanksgiving and everyone would have a chance mid-semester to pause and collect themselves for the push through the second half of the semester. This cannot solve the general issue of the closeness of the holidays, but such a plan addresses some of the major difficulties in the schedule of the fall semester. Why not make Thanksgiving a time of family, and not of school, by ending the semester?