You might think hell-week-and-a-half is something only the Navy Seals must endure. Perhaps you think it's just another grueling activity for those Dartmouth students with blue ribbons in their hair lugging giant stuffed animals to class. No, hell-week-and-a-half isn't voluntary, and everyone one of us will be subjected to this torture in a little over a month.
Hell-week-and-a-half is the 10- or 11-day addendum that separates Thanksgiving break from winter break. Condensed into this short time frame are two days of classes, reading period, final papers and final exams. It's a 200-meter dash we're expected to run in a 100-meter time. It's a bottomless canyon the administration pushes us into backwards each autumn as our friends and family wave from either side.
The effect these 11 days have on our academic life is troubling. Surviving a 10-week term at Dartmouth necessitates the creation of routine, of week-to-week consistency. A break in that routine can be distracting, and demotivating. The campus seems to still be lulling in a tryptophan-induced coma upon our return from Thanksgiving break; classes are unenthused as we long for more home-cooked meals. That this mental checkout occurs during the most academically important part of the term likely has a profound effect on how students perform on final projects and exams.
Our untimely fall schedule inflicts various other wounds on student life. The costs of returning home for Thanksgiving break can be exorbitant for students who live outside of New England. For students who are already strapped for cash, it's hard to justify spending $200 for four days at home. For those who live nearby or have the means to get home for the holiday, the break can often feel more like an extended study hall for upcoming finals than a relaxing time spent with family and friends.
Last week, the administration once again began to discuss making changes to Dartmouth's fall and summer schedules ("Admin. explores calendar change," Oct. 30). If this idea becomes policy, Summer and Fall terms would both start earlier so that Thanksgiving break and winter break could be melded together, thus altogether avoiding the 11-day intersession.
This plan seems to be the panacea for the ills of the Dartmouth Plan. By starting Fall term sooner, students would no longer have to spend that painful month in purgatory between when our friends return to college for their fall semesters in August and we start our classes in September. We'd be able to spend more time on campus while the summer is still in swing, and get out before the weather became too unbearable. Lastly, and most obviously, this change would significantly enhance students' ability to meet the rigorous academic responsibilities that befall us at the end of the Fall term. We'd then be gifted with over a month of relaxation and mental recuperation before Winter term.
Some wrinkles will need to be ironed out of the plan before it can be implemented. For instance, where would First-Year Trips, International Student Orientation and Orientation fit into this new schedule? Since the dates of both summer and fall terms would be pushed earlier, these programs would just need to occur earlier. Graduation seems to be the limiting factor on the start of Summer term, as the dormitories are used to accommodate the massive influx of family and alumni that attend the event.
These issues can be circumvented, however, with careful planning and innovative thinking. Let's confront the various challenges that face this plan and improve the Dartmouth Plan, so that next year, come November, we can finish our exams and eat our turkey in peace.
