In the last issue of Chimes before break, I opened my article about the restructured winter intensive talking about how many students, including myself, were eager for the break. By the end of the semester, I’m usually drowning in papers and presentations, trying to juggle everything on a diminishing amount of sleep. By the time we hit reading recess, nothing sounds better than multiple consecutive weeks with no deadlines.
And for the first week or two, that was true. All five of us in my family were home, at least for a while. I’ve always had the ability to get in some good family time on breaks, especially because my mom is a teacher and her schedule has similarly-timed pauses throughout the academic year. My dad took off work the week of Christmas, and a few other days between Christmas and New Year’s. We drove up to Traverse City for a few days, stopping at some nice restaurants and some (admittedly less nice) frigid but beautiful spots on the beach. My youngest brother, who I don’t get to see much during the school year, spent hours talking with me about LEGOs and trying to teach me to play Fortnite.
The abrupt feeling that four weeks of break was a really long time came crashing in on the 6th. My parents went back to work and my youngest brother went back to high school, leaving me and my brother who’s a freshman at Calvin with a vast, unbroken span of time each day, most of which went into alternating between reading books and playing on our PS5.
I was fortunate to also have some research assistant work to do during that time. I also applied for a few jobs, and put some hours into a literature review for my honors thesis. However, between all that, there were long stretches of idleness. I appreciated the chance to re-read Narnia and the Three Musketeers, but I couldn’t help the feeling that I would be using my time better at school. I missed my friends, and the fact that Calvin’s graduation is a week later than usual this year was throwing a wrench into some of my summer plans.
When I came back to campus, I started asking around. While some of the people I’ve talked to were grateful for the pause, I’m certainly not the only one who feels like four weeks dragged things out a bit. It’s an awkward length of time to try and find a job, and by Jan. 20, the connection between the break and the holidays feels tenuous.
This year was the first time I really felt we could have all headed back to class a while before we did. But last year, exam week ended on Friday, Dec. 15, and we came back to class on Tuesday, Jan. 16, giving us almost the exact same length of a break.
I didn’t feel like last year’s break was too long because I was in a winter class. Last January, I returned to school on the 3rd of January to take an honors class on Alexis de Tocqueville’s book Democracy in America. That year, I’m pretty sure it was the only winter intensive class offered on campus. This year, there were none.
One of the coolest things about that on-campus winter class was that its cost was folded into your spring tuition as long as you stayed under 18 credits for the full semester. In my reporting about winter intensive trips, I learned financial reasons were a key reason Calvin stopped offering Interim in its original form, so, in hindsight, I shouldn’t have been surprised that on-campus winter intensives are nowhere to be seen.
Out of the 13 winter intensive classes offered, all of them involved a travel component. I like that Calvin gives interested students (and those who can afford it) a chance to see the world, and I don’t think those trips should go away. I would, however, like to see options for specialized intensive learning that don’t include a $2,000-$5,000 price tag on top of tuition. If Calvin administrators want to encourage students to use their break as well as possible, they should work to offer more and cheaper options for students during the winter intensive. As long as the number of available spots and the travel costs stay where they are, the idea that we have a month-long break with opportunities for two weeks of January travel turns a blind eye to the reality for most students.
All in all, my annoyances with a month off from academics are relatively minor. A deadline-free month did turn out to be a wonderful luxury, and I was glad to live life at a different rhythm for a while. If I couldn’t wait to get back, even with a fair amount of work and a stable family situation, I can’t imagine what a month away from school would be like for someone without those privileges.