Two more weeks

You have to wonder if the people that designed the Princeton fall semester actually ever went to college. At this point in the year, I am so disoriented and out of sync with school life that all I really want to do is check out until reading period. And I know I am not alone in my sentiments; this week so far has been marred by apathetic precept participation, poor lecture turnout and a generally disgruntled feeling amongst the student body who resent coming back to campus for a such a fragmented chunk of time. Even professors have shown displeasure at having to deal with such a disjointed grouping of academic weeks that Professor Fleming has famously called our school year the "the craziest academic calendar anyone's ever heard of."

While our calendar is frequently the subject of ridicule among our high school friends and parents, the reality is that we have come back from Thanksgiving to spend a grand total of 12 days on campus, with a three week long hiatus looming on the horizon and classes not again resuming until Jan. 31. I never ever thought I would be the person to complain about vacation time, but having now been through my third fall semester at Princeton, I am adamant that it is the most poorly structured and impractically arranged four months of class.

I happen to love my weekly college routine. I love my weekends, I love my Wednesday nights and I even love the overbearing feeling of a Sunday at 11 p.m. But with vacation starting again just one weekend from now, the mentality that seems to dominate the campus is, "What's the point?" It feels like during the fall semester that every time you get into a weekly rhythm and began to get on some sort of "roll" in both academics and extracurriculars, a week or a couple days off is inter spliced in between to soothe our tussled feathers. When my English preceptor complained yesterday at the lack of participation saying "didn't you just have a vacation," the general mood seemed to be an indifference and lack of momentum to drive through the last few days. If administrators actually talked to the students and faculty before creating the calendar, they would learn that with such a short time between Thanksgiving and Christmas break and with no exams or final projects which to build towards in these short two weeks, the only mental energy students exert is focused on packing their suitcases.

A serious theme that I have frequently explored in my columns is the frantic pace that Princeton students shuttle from day to day. Anyone defending our Fall Break would argue that the week off is a welcome, nay,necessary interlude from our hectic academics and fast paced lives. While the argument for ditching the idealistic Fall Break has been sufficiently beaten to death and looks to be in no jeopardy from the administration, one has to ask why we attempt to cram so much into a notably short fall semester? The sad reality is, that Princeton students are overloaded with reading, papers and extracurriculars, and with such a broken up few months with which to function, the simple pleasures of college life are sadly lost to lack of time.

My argument is that we should just have more time spent on campus. While I don't necessarily feel as though I am being shortchanged, one more week tacked on to both sides of the semester would completely transform the social and academic dynamic on campus. Two more weeks would give professors much valued time to develop our sometimes diluted curriculum and further allow the pace of our classes and the load of our weekly assignments to achieve some level of achievable pragmatism. More importantly, however, it would allow the student body to gather the rosebuds of our ever-fleeting college years. Two more weeks would give us two more weekends with our roommates, two more Thursday nights at the Street, two more Tuesday dinners with friends and two more weeks to take a much needed deep breath from the furious race that we all seem to be running.