Next Monday, students at top universities across the country will pack their bags and head home, but many Georgetown students will be stuck on the Hilltop until classes end on Wednesday. In fact, many Hoyas will not even have the opportunity to visit their families this Thanksgiving. And none have had more than a long weekend off from Georgetown’s grueling fall semester. After midterms begin in early October, students face a daunting schedule of group projects and exams without the chance to catch their breath that many friends at peer institution have.
The University should add a fall break to separate these grading periods, and lengthen its Thanksgiving break to better accommodate the increasing geographic diversity of its students. Georgetown gives its students far fewer breaks than peer schools. Princeton, Harvard, Cornell, and Duke all have fall breaks in the middle of their semesters. Princeton, Yale and Stanford, to name just a few, also have the entire week off for Thanksgiving.
Georgetown students—many of whom cannot even travel home for Thanksgiving if they live far away and have mandatory classes on Wednesday—are burnt-out by this point because of the University’s overlapping and inconsistent grading periods. A student’s exams are often spread across the entire semester, and there is no set period to relax and reflect before finals. A week-long fall break between midterm exams and finals would be a practical way to encourage professors to group larger assignments and give their students a chance to take a much needed break from their studies.
The brevity of Georgetown’s Thanksgiving break is a relic of its days as a regional school—now that Georgetown is a national institution, there is no longer any practical reason for this schedule. Not as many students at Georgetown come from Mid-Atlantic States as they once did. The University needs to recognize this and extend Thanksgiving break to allow more of its students to return home and spend time with their families.
If it is not willing to make drastic scheduling changes yet, Georgetown can start by cancelling classes on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Not only would a lengthened vacation give students more time with their families, it would improve their focus heading into final exams. Georgetown administrators must realize that overworking students over the course of an entire semester will negatively impact students’ retention of course materials and pressure them to cram more in their studying time. Working this hard during the fall semester is just not working for Georgetown students.
