Give Us a Break: Extend Intersession

In a scheduling arrangement that the Office of the Registrar characterized as "absolutely typical," Harvard students were treated to a 1998 intersession spanning from Friday afternoon on Jan. 23 to Wednesday, Jan. 28. While the Registrar may boast that this constitutes a "five day break," a glance at a calendar reveals that any student with an exam on Jan. 23 can count the days off on two fingers. Those students lucky enough to finish exams early were rewarded with a vacation. But why should vacation time be a matter of luck?

Harvard likes to boast about the length of reading period, which theoretically allows students to forget about schoolwork over winter break and return to school rested and ready to study for exams. But when countless courses assign papers and projects with deadlines as early as the first week of January, "winter break" often turns into two extra weeks of academic work.

Unlike other schools, where fall semester ends before winter break and students can enjoy a true break from their courses, Harvard leaves its students with no work-free vacations whatsoever, with the beautiful exception of intersession. When "intersession" is reduced to two days off after five months of straight work, we have to start wondering whether those who create our yearly calendar have any interest in our collective mental health.

The two-day intersession also forces another calendar oddity: the Wednesday-to-Tuesday shopping period, which prevents students from catching up on work for classes over a weekend--all the more reason to preserve a week-long intersession. Full-year courses that assign work over intersession also do their part toward destroying our only semblance of a vacation.

Several solutions to this problem are conceivable. One possibility is that course heads be restricted from assigning work due the week after winter break, but such a policy would be difficult to implement effectively. Another possibility is shortening reading period to maintain a sacrosanct intersession, but this proposal threatens to do further damage to winter break.

The most reasonable solution is to make intersession exactly that: a time between semesters, preferably one week, during which no school business (seminars, sectioning, and so on) should be allowed.