Chico State's independent student newspaper

The Orion

Chico State's independent student newspaper

The Orion

Chico State's independent student newspaper

The Orion

Complaints about short winter break are easily solvable

mattMurphycolor.jpg
Matt Murphy

Spring break is fast approaching and in the spirit of the season, I’ve been in touch with various friends who don’t go to Chico about plans for everyone’s week off.

There’s just one problem: no one has the same week off. Between private colleges, University of California schools, and State Universities, there is not a spring break in common among them.

It seems a little crazy to me. The time at which a school takes its breaks doesn’t seem to contribute in any way to its academic status or reputation.

With many students feeling that Chico State’s winter break was too short to adequately take intersession courses this year compared to last, I’ve come up with a solution.

End this ridiculousness, these schedules that seem to be fluid year-to-year, and put every school on the same schedule.

Sure, there are arguments for semesters or quarters being stronger systems. Great, get a committee together. Have those arguments and pick one. Or come up with a new way to go to school, I don’t care.

I got the same quality of education last fall with the semester starting a week later than Fall 2012 did. I’ll get the same quality of education this spring, even though it’s ending a week earlier than Spring 2013 did.

It all seems very arbitrary.

It is absolutely ludicrous that amongst four people getting the same quality of education in California at different institutions, each has a different week long break in a five month span.

That ball is in the California chancellors, provosts, and presidents’ courts…if their schools are still adequately funded to have courts, in which case the metaphor’s not really important.

Matt Murphy can be reached at [email protected] or @matthewcharlesz on Twitter.

Leave a Comment
More to Discover

Comments (0)

All The Orion Picks Reader Picks Sort: Newest

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *