_Kurtis Dunlap is a fifth-year senior at MU. He is an English major. He writes about student life as an opinion columnist for The Maneater._
On Oct. 3, 1863, President Lincoln declared that the fourth Thursday of every November was to be considered a national holiday called Thanksgiving. Every year since, Americans across the country have come together to celebrate and give thanks for everything they have.
Since its inception, Thanksgiving has been the worst holiday break for college students.
Thanksgiving week is one of the busiest travel times in America and there is no doubt the mass amounts of college students traveling home contribute to this. Although Thanksgiving is a great time to see family and friends, it is not all mashed potatoes and gravy.
MU gives us a full week off from school. If you include the weekends, it is a total of nine days of vacation time. Having all that time to rest, eat and take a break from the daily grind is always welcomed, but getting more than a whole week off is excessive.
After we come back from Thanksgiving break, we have two weeks of classes left before finals week. I have never understood why we get the whole week of Thanksgiving off when we are going to be on winter break just three weeks later. You could argue that having a full nine days to get rejuvenated for finals would be beneficial, but I think it is the opposite.
You get home-cooked meals, you get to sleep in and you don’t constantly have assignments and tests you need to be studying for. When you come back from break, the last thing you want to do is homework, study for tests or even wake up early anymore. Thanksgiving break gives students the illusion that the semester is over, when in reality the most important part is on the horizon.
A more logical scheduling of Thanksgiving break would be to give students off the Wednesday before Thanksgiving through the weekend. Take those extra days and give us off some time in late September or early October and call it a fall break. This would break up the unwarranted nine days off in a row just three weeks before winter break.
Because of the large population within the student body that is from out of state, I think MU is catering more to those students that have to travel further distances to get home. You could probably get away with having a shorter Thanksgiving break at smaller schools because a majority of their students live much closer. It makes sense systemically for MU to have such an extended break, but it is hurting students more than it is helping.
Enjoy the home-cooked meals and the sleep you are going to catch up on, enjoy all those questions from relatives about if you are dating anyone and why you don’t have a boyfriend or girlfriend and enjoy all those awkward family meals. Before you know it, you’ll be back in the library, pulling all-nighters and eating something out of a can.
