I'm Not Reading

IT'S READING PERIOD again, and I'm not reading.

It's spring, it's warm and finals don't start for two weeks. I'm not poring over my A-12 sourcebook, struggling through my Hegel or mastering my Ec 10 graphs.

I am lying in the sun, going to movies, drinking, sleeping in and taking a lot of naps. And I'm thinking about starting my philosophy paper. But I'm not reading.

The Two Week Reading Period is the one of the sillier parts of Harvard's silly academic calendar. No one, save a few of the nerdier members of SONG, studies for finals in the first week of reading period. That's because no one needs 14 days to study for four tests. Finals just aren't that hard.

THE UNDERGRADUATE COUNCIL'S current proposal to reform Harvard's calendar is a step in the right direction. But the Council recommendation--which would condense winter and spring exam periods by two days and facilitate a slightly longer intersession and a slightly earlier summer dismissal--does not go far enough. If we want to fix the flaws of the archaic calendar, we should do it right. Here's how:

* shorten reading period to one week. Let SONG complain all it wants. No other college reserves such a ridiculously long period of time to study for finals; infact, most colleges don't have more than two or three days between classes and exams.

Of course, two free weeks at the end of classes is a welcome prospect for students who spend 80 hours a week on their extracurriculars. But it's probably not the best way to get a good education. Reading is assigned to correspond to lectures and discussions, not to be completed in a two-week cramming session after the course has ended. That defeats the purpose.

As it is, we put off reading until reading period. Then we put it off again until the week before exams. Our two-week reading period serves no productive purpose--it only encourages us to procrastinate. But to make a one-week reading period possible, Harvard would have to:

* Make reading period a true reading period. That means no lectures, no labs, no papers during the week. Give us a chance to study for finals without classes or papers hanging over our heads, and one week will be more than enough to prepare for final exams.

I'm relatively lucky this "reading" period. I only have a week of Ec 10 lectures to attend and a philosophy paper to write. One of my friends has a 25-page tutorial paper. My roommate has four papers. And a poor stress case across the hall has three 10-15 page papers to write in a week. She doesn't have a lot of time to study for her finals.

Finally, the Committee on Undergraduate Education and the Faculty Council should follow the UC's advice to:

* Shorten the winter and spring exam periods: Again, two weeks is too long. Harvard could finish exams in 10 days without much of a problem. Phone polls have indicated that students favor the proposal and are willing to accept the increased chance of having two exams in one day in exchange for a less dreadfully extended exam period. Instead of hanging around Cambridge waiting to take finals, we could be skiing by mid-January and home by mid-May.

THE ACADEMIC CALENDAR is undoubtedly one of Harvard's most unappealing aspects. Not only do we get a scanty two weeks for winter recess, but we have to come back and endure an excruciating month-long combination of reading period and finals. Our spring finals month is just as hellish as the winter one, but at least it's followed by a vacation. (I guess we're lucky that they give us our finals before we leave home for the summer--they could conceivably administer our exams upon our return the following September.)

Our ridiculous academic calendar is due largely to Harvard's Institutional Inertia, a 355-year-old law of physics which holds that things will tend to stay the way they are--no matter how silly they are, no matter how reasonable arguments for change may be. That's why we still have final clubs, baked fish pizziola and a dearth of women and minorities on the faculty. And that's why it's going to be hard to change the face of reading and exam periods.

The Council has taken a small but important step in battling Harvard's Institutional Inertia. It shouldn't stop, however, at simply suggesting a shorter exam period--it should also suggest changes in our insanely protracted reading period.

I doubt anyone is getting much studying done this week. Harvard students are either writing papers or putting off studying for finals. In any case, one thing is certain:

It's reading period, and no one is reading.

Steven V. Mazie '93 is taking the week off.

Nobody's reading. So why is reading period two weeks long?