The Consequences of Having School During Spring Break

For the first time in my entire school career, my school was not given a spring break. The strange thing is I genuinely didn’t think I would be affected that much; we are in a pandemic, and I couldn’t afford to go anywhere anyway. It turns out that was nonsense.

I don’t think I even realized how badly students and our professors needed a break this time. Of course, I was drowning in work and struggling with that, but I just thought that was my own problem considering I made the mistake of taking 18 credits this semester. 

The fact of the matter is that all of us have been tested in ways we never have this past year and a half. Mentally and physically, we are not where we thought we were going to be, and while this all seems like an opportunity for growth, most people are at their wit’s end. We needed a spring break this year more than we have ever needed one in probably our entire lives.

We have not only been expected to continue schooling (at the same price) in environments that are not school-friendly but to perform with the same gusto as well. I have had friends that had to drop out this year because of losing a job in the pandemic and others because of familial problems, also because of the pandemic. It just doesn’t make sense that while we are all juggling more than we have ever had to globally, that we are not given more breaks.

If anything, we should have had multiple week-long breaks just to catch up with how quickly school seems to be moving as a result of all of us working from home. For example, there is a form of testing on Lockdown browser that even notifies your professor of sound in a room where a student is testing, and sometimes the software will even kick you out of an exam if it detects any outside sound, but not everyone lives in a quite simple space. For students to be kicked out of exams for not living in specific conditions feels quite elitist, to say the least. 

The main issue here is that this entire time of COVID-19, the people in charge have let us down in more ways than one. From the former president taking his time in warning the American people of what was to come to colleges acting as though we have no lives outside of their school, I’ve almost started to lose faith in those we look to for direction and guidance. This may all sound bitter and ‘blame-y,’ but I don’t really care.

Those people have a responsibility to the people who are affected by their decisions, and for them not to think of others, but only themselves, just further pushes me to realize that we collectively have reached lows we shouldn’t ever have had to, had they taken their jobs more seriously. We all have had an increase of expectations put on us because we are working from home, but half of the testing software isn’t even compatible with our living arrangements either.

• breaks
• college
• corona
• mental health
• pandemic
• school
• spring break