David Kanter | More time for giving thanks

This time next week, I'll unfortunately still be here at school.

Don't get me wrong - I love being here. It's just that the next day is Thanksgiving, one of the few times during the year my family gets together anymore. But I have classes the day before Thanksgiving, thanks to the structure of our current fall semester calendar. So between getting into Providence Wednesday night and leaving for Philly again on Sunday, I'll be home for a measly three days.

My predicament isn't so bad - at least I'll be able to go home. But if we just had a week-long Thanksgiving break and got rid of that long weekend that poses as fall "break" at the beginning of October, I think most of us would be better off.

First off, why exactly do we need a break a month and a half into the semester? It's nice and everything, and I'll take it if you're going to give it to me, but we just had two and a half months off from school.

What exactly are we breaking from? I had two exams right after we got back, so it didn't turn out to be much of a break at all. I know some of you will still have tests to take and papers to write immediately after Thanksgiving, but there were probably more of you who had exams and papers due right after fall break.

As Wharton freshman Brian Serpico put it, "Fall break is too short to do anything." Serpico, who lives in the Philly suburbs, can go home over fall break and Thanksgiving. But he finds that as soon as he gets home, he's already turning around to come back to school.

And next year, family weekend is only four days after the end of fall break. In 2010, family weekend is three days after fall break. Maybe if we got rid of fall break and moved those days to the week of Thanksgiving, there'd finally be a reason for upperclassmen parents to come to family weekend.

With the current schedule, transportation costs also start to add up - you or your parents have to pay for two round-trip flights. With just one long break during the week of Thanksgiving, you'd only have to pay for one round-trip ticket. And if students could fly the Friday or Saturday before Thanksgiving rather than Tuesday or Wednesday, they'd probably save a lot of money on travel.

Best of all, a weeklong Thanksgiving break could actually make it worthwhile for students who live on the west coast or outside the country to travel home. I think I have a quick turnaround between here and Massachusetts, but consider someone who lives out in Oregon. Our current schedule shortchanges anyone who has a really long flight to take, because travel takes up the whole first and last day of their break.

College sophomore and UA member Mark Peter Pan, who lives in California, explained to me that he didn't go home over fall break and doesn't plan to go home over Thanksgiving because the short time that he gets to spend at home doesn't justify the exorbitant airfare. If we had the whole week off, Pan said he "definitely would consider going home."

The weeklong break system seems to be working out pretty well during the spring, so I'm not sure why the same wouldn't be true in the fall. Have you ever heard anyone complain about spring break?

Even though the academic calendar seems to be set for the next two years, the powers that be need to make this revision to the schedule and give us more time with our families over the holidays. I think most of us would give thanks for that.

David Kanter is a College sophomore from East Falmouth, Mass. His e-mail is kanter@dailypennsylvanian.com. David vs. Goliath appears on Wednesdays.

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