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The Dartmouth
May 6, 2024 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

A Holiday Bonus?

To the Editor:

I disagree with Daniel Belkin's plea for the College to observe more federal holidays ("Give Me a Break," Jan. 23).

Belkin assumes that x-hours would "seamlessly recover the missed classes," just like they do for Winter Carnival. Not true! Imagine a Monday-Wednesday-Friday class that assigns 100 pages of reading for each lecture.

On a regular week, you read 300 pages. Now imagine that a cancelled Friday class is replaced by a Tuesday x-hour. Now you have to read 100 pages for Tuesday, for a weekly total of 400 pages.

Multiply that across your three classes and, for every post-holiday week, you get the workload-equivalent of taking four classes instead of three!

I don't know about Belkin, but I'd like my senior year to be just a bit easier.