The holidays are around the corner, but the three-week period between Thanksgiving break, final exam week and winter break is preventing some students from getting into the holiday spirit.<\/p>\n
Last academic year, the mid-week schedule for final exams caused some discontent among students<\/a>. This year, the University\u2019s final exam schedule<\/a> will take up a full week, starting on Monday, Dec. 8, and ending Friday, Dec. 12.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to Adam Lee, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies and chair of the calendar committee, the University returned to its regular final exam scheduling for this fall semester.<\/p>\n \u201cHaving finals as a contiguous week is our standard practice,\u201d Lee said. \u201cThe mechanics of how dates fell this year allowed us to return to that practice.\u201d<\/p>\n Carys Thompson, a sophomore public policy major, recalls the stress of last year\u2019s final exam schedule.<\/p>\n \u201c[Last year\u2019s exam schedule] was not fun,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cI did not [enjoy] that.\u201d<\/p>\n Although final exams take up a full week, some students are frustrated with the schedule between Thanksgiving break<\/a> and finals, which has one week of regular class sessions in between. Thanksgiving break takes place from Nov. 22 to Nov. 30, and finals start Monday, Dec. 8.\u00a0<\/p>\n Briella Greczyn, a first-year communications major, noted how the closeness between Thanksgiving and finals week will affect her upcoming holiday break.<\/p>\n \u201c[The proximity between Thanksgiving break and finals week] adds so much more stress on students,\u201d Greczyn said. \u201cBeing at home, studying will be a lot different. I want to see my friends and my family and still be able to spend time with them but also spend time on my assignments because it\u2019s the final stretch.\u201d<\/p>\n Ryan Welsh, a senior marketing and supply chain management major, said his Thanksgiving will be affected by early exams.<\/p>\n \u201cI have no finals on finals week,\u201d Welsh said. \u201cAll my exams are the final week of classes. I\u2019m basically just going home to study.\u201d<\/p>\n For some students, including Mia Stoudt, a first-year biological sciences major, regular exams are taking place during the week between Thanksgiving and finals.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI have a midterm the week before finals,\u201d Stoudt said. \u201cI have to focus on that midterm before I can even think about studying for finals. That being so close is stressing me out.\u201d<\/p>\n Winter break begins on Dec. 14, giving students a two-week period on campus before they have to go back home. Welsh, who lives over four hours away from campus, said the amount of travelling in such a short time span will affect his studying.<\/p>\n \u201c[Travelling] is inconvenient,\u201d Welsh said. \u201cTo come back [to campus] for a week to do exams, it\u2019s not my favorite. I\u2019m probably going to lose productivity \u2014 studying back home compared to staying on campus \u2014 but I don\u2019t want to stay on campus during Thanksgiving.\u201d<\/p>\n For some students, including Jackson Heinefield, a first-year statistics and biology major, the continuous traveling has caused disagreements among his family.<\/p>\n \u201cI live in Texas. [Flying back and forth] was a point of contention in my family,\u201d Heinefield said. \u201cMy dad didn\u2019t want to fly me for Thanksgiving back home because it\u2019s only a two-week gap [between returning from Thanksgiving and the start of winter break]. That was a pretty big argument both of my parents had with each other.\u201d<\/p>\n Greczyn, who lives in New York, also said travelling is stressful for her and her parents during the holiday season.<\/p>\n \u201cMy parents are like, \u2018We can come down to get you,\u2019 but it\u2019s a hassle on their part around the holiday season, traffic \u2014 everything adds up,\u201d Greczyn said. \u201cIt\u2019s stressful to think about my assignments and how I\u2019m getting home.\u201d<\/p>\n The government shutdown<\/a>, which ended on Nov. 12<\/a>, resulted in many flight cancellations<\/a> across the country. Attempts to get airfare tickets during the shutdown added to the stress of traveling for students, according to Thompson.<\/p>\n \u201cWith the government shutdown, it\u2019s really busy and hard to<\/a> [get a plane ticket] \u2014 adding a flight time, having to mentally prepare what I have to organize,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cThere\u2019s no breathing room.\u201d<\/p>\n Some students, including KJ Karaisz, a first-year psychology and philosophy major, are upset over how late in the semester they\u2019re able to go home. Karaisz believes a week-long fall break and a shorter Thanksgiving break would give students the opportunity to focus on family more than exams.<\/p>\n Other U.S. colleges, including Carnegie Mellon University<\/a>, have a week-long fall break<\/a> in October and a shortened Thanksgiving break<\/a>, from Wednesday Nov. 26, to Sunday, Nov. 30. Pitt\u2019s fall break was only three days long, from Oct. 10 to Oct. 12.<\/p>\n \u201cTechnically, \u2018fall break\u2019 \u2014 with air quotes \u2014 is a reason to go home, but not [for Pitt students],\u201d Karaisz said. \u201cIt\u2019s a really long time in the fall being here before you can finally go home for an extended period of time. The way CMU does it \u2014 I would like that a lot more.\u201d<\/p>\n Although many students are frustrated with the closeness between Thanksgiving break, final exam week and winter break, they aren\u2019t sure what the University could have scheduled differently within the three-week period.<\/p>\n \u201cThanksgiving and Christmas are just so close,\u201d Greczyn said. \u201cI can see how it can be really difficult to make the finals schedule and figure out how to make everybody be content with it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The holidays are around the corner, but the three-week period between Thanksgiving break, final exam week and winter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[22952,22953,3734,73,75,74,1274,22954],"class_list":["post-37354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-final-exams","tag-finals","tag-holidays","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-thanksgiving","tag-thanksgiving-break"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}