Winter break at SLU provides students with well-deserved rest and time with the family. However, winter break at SLU is scheduled very differently from many other colleges. Students leave campus a week later compared to many other universities across the country. Along with a late start to break, this year SLU starts exam week on a Sunday. This causes a unique situation for students across campus.
SLU’s later winter recess leaves many students stressed about travel arrangements. The later break causes students who fly home to buy extraordinarily expensive plane tickets. According to CNN.com, the closer your flight to Christmas the higher the price, high demand equals high prices. This is a problem because SLU’s exam week this year ends a week before Christmas making flying after your exam extremely expensive. Morgan Welles, a sophomore from San Francisco makes the flight regularly and explains that holiday season is a whole different experience. “It’s just frustrating when they push it [break] back. I live in San Francisco and fly out of JFK. The closer exam week is to Christmas, the more expensive and stressful it is for me. The price isn’t the only thing, the crowds also make traveling this close to Christmas difficult.” Said Welles about flying home during Christmas time.
This problem is not as common at other schools because they usually have their exam week during SLU’s last week of classes. Cameron Mason a sophomore at Xavier University, takes a flight home from Cincinnati to Rochester. Xavier’s finals week is during SLU’s last week of classes. This allows students to travel before the true holiday travel chaos begins. “Yeah, at least for me I didn’t have a tough time finding an affordable flight home, they were pretty similar to the ones that I can find during my fall break,” remarked Mason.
Like Mason, Ryan Sheridan a student at the University of Indiana also has no trouble finding travel arrangements. Indiana University, like Xavier, has their finals a week before SLU’s. “I drive home but, I know kids who fly all over the country and they seem to never have any issues. None like the ones you describe to happen for students at SLU,” described Sheridan.
SLU having such a late break is interesting because the contact time that students have with faculty is way above the national average. This means the class time that students have far exceeds what is mandated. Currently, there are two proposals in place to alleviate the late break and make the academic calendar more efficient. The first proposal is to shorten class time by ten minutes. The second proposal that would specifically alleviate the short break would be to shorten the semester by one week.
This may be the only answer to having students get home at a reasonable time for the holidays like other universities across the country are already doing. This change will help students get home sooner cheaper, and with less stress which should be a priority for SLU.