Easter Break: Egg-cellent or Obsolete?

EGG-CELLENT:

There’s a lot to love about life at Loyola, including city outings, late nights with friends and exhilarating sports games. But these on-campus activities pale in comparison to school breaks. 

Loyola students have five main breaks throughout the academic year, with Easter being the final one. In contrast to the travel and fun of spring break, Easter provides a long weekend for students to recoup before the semester’s final push. 

I quickly added Loyola’s Easter Break — a perk unique to Christian universities — to the “pro” section of my college “pros and cons” list last year. The chance to return home one more time before summer was a dream only Easter break could fulfill. 

Whether students have a staycation in Chicago or trek home with an overweight suitcase to get a head start on the dreaded dorm move-out process, Easter break is the perfect time to prepare for both finals season and summer. 

Easter falls on a different weekend each year, lending students the unique opportunity to take advantage of it for different reasons — maybe a bonus vacation somewhere warm, some much needed extra study time or new memories with friends in Chicago. 

This winter I was looking forward to returning to my seaside town on the East Coast for spring break, planning to spend time with my best friends and ski with my family. Unfortunately, a ruptured eardrum and two ear infections crushed my hopes of getting on a plane to head home. 

After that disappointment, Easter break became my knight in shining armor. I booked a flight home immediately, set up a countdown on my laptop and gave my family weekly updates about how many days were left until my flight. 

Spring semester has its share of difficulties, from impending final exams to unpredictable Chicago weather. Why not celebrate another break from all the college stress? 

Sure, a four-day break isn’t huge, but it’s a heck of a lot better than no break at all. Just because your Easter break might not consist of a trip home or freedom from studying doesn’t mean you can’t take full advantage of a few days off. 

The bonus break is a chance to find a delicious dinner spot downtown, catch the Cubs in action or start packing up your dorm — reducing end-of-year panic. 

After graduation, the demands of a full-time job will swallow up schedules, and the breaks we take for granted each year will become fond memories of the past. For now, enjoy your Easter break.

OBSOLETE:

While any academic break is welcome for a frazzled college student, Easter break is unnecessary and unreliable, despite the short-term charm of a break from class and the rejuvenation from a long weekend. 

Easter break — if it can even be called a break — adds a grand total of two-and-a-half extra days to Easter weekend. Although it’s more than double the average weekend, this break is too short for many students to travel home and, worse still, has inconsistent timing each year, randomizing how it affects students and course schedules. 

If given an early spring Easter break, students still coming down from spring break are unable to fully settle back into the workload of the semester. If given a late Easter break, students can’t fully digest the end of the semester, instead lured into a false sense of rest.

This semester, Easter break falls on the last weekend before finals. While it could provide an opportunity for students to study non-stop for their exams, its quick travel turnaround prohibits those returning home from balancing both seeing family and focusing on their studies.

The time off is welcome, but the crunch means it acts as any other weekend — unlike spring break, which allows for destination vacations and lengthy trips home thanks to its longer timeframe. 

Instead of restructuring the spring semester schedule to cater only to Catholic Holy Week, it should be reworked for students of Christian denominations to request the Easter holidays — Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Monday — off for religious observation, instead of mandating the same inflexible break for all students. 

For students not using the break for religious observance, the two-and-a-half extra days of break could instead be applied to spring break, lengthening the iconic college activity while also allowing for a smoother transition into finals season and the summer by omitting the jerky holiday break. 

Another idea is adding a second break in the spring semester at a different point. The two possible times for Easter break, the beginning of the mid-semester point or right before summer, stall the shift from academic life to leisure in the spring and summer. If given another break earlier than or soon after spring break, perhaps the holiday wouldn’t interfere too much with students’ academic lives. 

The timing of Easter break is inconvenient to students regardless of its positioning in the semester. While any time off is welcome, students are the priority in semester scheduling and the current Easter break works actively against their academic and personal success.