For many students, breaks are the only chance to relax and take time away from school. 

However, some students say short breaks lead to more stress than relaxation. 

Fall semester can be more difficult for than spring because there are fewer breaks and they are a lot shorter than those in the spring. 

In fall semester, students get off for three breaks—Labor Day, Fall Break and Thanksgiving Break. However, none of these breaks give students more than two full days off. 

Two of the three breaks give students Friday off. Many students are upset by this because they already don’t have classes on Fridays. 

Kassidy Stanford, a senior speech language pathology major, said getting Fridays off as one of the break days does not give her enough time to relax, as professors still assign work. 

“I already get Fridays off, so on a two-day break like Fall Break that gives Friday and Monday off, I am only really getting a one-day break,” Stanford said. “Most of my professors assign work due the day after break so my one-day break is just spent on school work.” 

On top off the stress from short breaks, students are also nervous about the new finals schedule. 

Typically, finals span over a week. Students begin finals on Monday and Tuesday with a break on Wednesday to allow time to rest and study before the last set of finals Thursday and Friday. However, for the 2021-2022 academic year, finals week starts Thursday and Friday of one week and ends Monday and Tuesday the following week. 

While some students are happy about the change because they feel it gives them more time to prepare, others don’t like it because they will have classes the Monday and Tuesday before finals week. This only allows students one day to study before finals start rather than the two to three they used to have. 

Manish Katuwal, a freshman mathematics student, said no matter what changes are made, he will make accommodations in order to do his best on his final exams. 

“I really don’t care much about how the exam is placed,” Katuwal said. “If I have to prepare for the exam, I will be ready for it without any effect of what is going on around.”

Stanford on the other hand does not like finals week being split. 

She said it makes studying for her exams and feeling adequately prepared very difficult. 

“I need a lot of time to prepare for my SLP exams and one day isn’t enough,” Stanford said. “Although we get the same amount of days before and in between finals, the other schedule made final exams a lot more manageable.”