Spring Breaks, Compared
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The middle of March is upon us, and all around the New York area, many college students and faculty are preparing for Spring Break. The break is always welcomed because it “breaks” up the extended slog of the spring term, which usually lasts for four full months.
This semester, I’m teaching at two colleges: at Pratt Institute and at CUNY Queens College. For my film history class at Pratt, I was able to schedule the midterm exam today, on March 11, just before spring break starts on March 14. However, I couldn’t do the same for the students in my media technologies class at Queens College. Their midterm exam will take place on March 17 (St. Patrick’s Day), but their spring break doesn’t take place until April 28. That is a very late spring break, taking place between the twelfth and thirteenth weeks of class.
Here’s a comparison of spring 2016 semesters at four area colleges where I have worked (Pratt, CUNY, and Fordham) or studied (NYU).
| Week | NYU | Pratt | CUNY | Fordham |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 18 | Week 1 | Week 1 | ||
| Jan 25 | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 2 | |
| Feb 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 1 | Week 3 |
| Feb 8 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 2 | Week 4 |
| Feb 15 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 3 | Week 5 |
| Feb 22 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 4 | Week 6 |
| Feb 29 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 5 | Midterm Exam |
| Mar 7 | Midterm Exam | Midterm Exam | Week 6 | Week 8 |
| Mar 14 | Spring Break | Spring Break | Midterm Exam | Week 9 |
| Mar 21 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Week 8 | Spring Break |
| Mar 28 | Week 9 | Week 10 | Week 9 | Easter Break |
| Apr 4 | Week 10 | Week 11 | Week 10 | Week 10 |
| Apr 11 | Week 11 | Week 12 | Week 11 | Week 11 |
| Apr 18 | Week 12 | Week 13 | Week 12 | Week 12 |
| Apr 25 | Week 13 | Week 14 | Spring Break | Week 13 |
| May 2 | Week 14 | Studio Days | Week 13 | Week 14 |
| May 9 | Reading Day | Final Exam | Week 14 | Final Exam |
| May 16 | Final Exam | ? | ||
| May 23 | Final Exam |
NYU and Pratt both schedule their spring breaks in the middle of March, just after Week 7 at NYU and Week 8 at Pratt. That’s ideal because you can schedule a Midterm Exam the week before and have it wrap up the first half of the course. Fordham schedules their spring break a week later but, because it’s a Jesuit university, it adds an additional Easter Break. For some reason, Fordham dictates that faculty schedule their Midterm Exams in late February. Whereas courses at NYU and at Pratt are divided into halves, the semester at Fordham is broken up into (unequal) thirds: before the midterm, between the midterm and breaks, and after the breaks.
The CUNY schedule, on the other hand, is a mess. As I’ve complained in the past, CUNY should stop scheduling spring break around the spring Easter/Passover holidays because it’s not conducive to learning. My students will endure twelve consecutive weeks of class before they get a break. Once the break is over and they will have emptied their minds of everything I taught them, they will have only two weeks to recover that knowledge before heading into the final exam. Moreover, the students in my class will also bear an additional burden: our final exam is scheduled for two weeks after our last class, despite Finals Week starting on the week of May 16.
My own undergraduate experience was quite different from that of these students. My university was on the quarter system, and spring break was the week between the winter and spring quarters. Once we finished our winter-quarter, final exams in late-March, we were off until classes started again in early April.
It was a true spring break.
