The holidays are quickly approaching, and with them comes the flurry of assignments, scheduling nightmares and, of course, travel plans. Officially, Villanova’s Thanksgiving Break starts after classes on Tuesday, giving students time to get home for the Thursday holiday. This gives five days total for Thanksgiving, as classes will resume the following Monday. However, many students every year decide to leave early in order to maximize time spent at home. This causes classes on Monday and Tuesday leading into the break to look rather empty.
This phenomenon isn’t all that surprising. College is stressful, and it’s hard to blame students for wanting to be home with their family a few days early.
For freshmen, the decision to stay or not is a big one. How many classes have been canceled? Can I afford to use an absence in one or two? Many want to see family for as long as possible but are marginally more concerned about the logistics of missing the classes in favor of traveling home.
“It definitely depends on the class structure,” freshman Emma Cote said, “Because I know people who can’t afford to miss their classes. But in my experience, my classes have been canceled pretty recently, and I don’t think it’s worth missing a weekend at home if classes are canceled last minute.”
Some may have even made plans to miss those classes accidentally, assuming break would be long enough to accommodate for Tuesday travel plans. This happened to freshman Jada Beard, who had her flight home booked before she realized there were still classes happening on campus that week.
“Luckily, my Tuesday class was canceled,” Beard said.
Upperclassmen tend to have a much more relaxed approach to Thanksgiving Break. Some have left early every year, regardless of whether their classes were canceled or not. Others have stayed to see the emptying campus while on their way to the classes that did meet. Either way, these students definitely understand the dismissive culture around this week.
Professors have widely varying views on the value of having class during the week of Thanksgiving Break. Some professors have never planned to have class on one of those days, canceling it weeks in advance. Philosophy professor Yue Wang had the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week marked off her syllabus since the beginning of the school year.
“[My] class only [has] a certain number of readings, and I fit them all in the schedule and still had that Tuesday to spare,” Wang said. “I also kept the Tuesday as a backup in case I had to cancel an earlier class.”
Seeing as Wang was able to have all her other classes, the last day before break is still left free. Wang also acknowledged that all her students “would have been checked out that day anyway,” which is likely a common sentiment on campus as we approach the holiday break. Despite this, some professors stick to their class time in the face of sparse attendance, which begs the question: How worth it are these two days of class?
If one were to ask most professors and parents, they’ll probably agree that the school should be open and ongoing for all scheduled class days no matter how close they come to a break. This is by no means an unfair position to take. It’s well-known that Villanova students get a lot of days off throughout the school year. However, when talking to students about their priorities during the week of a break, traveling home almost always takes precedence over the few classes they’ll miss. So, if many students have already written off those Monday and Tuesday classes, are they worth having at all?
