A People's Calendar for Harvard

Students would probably view with skepticism any changes proposed by an administration which (with varying degrees of subtlety) has to date been credited with a conspiratorial firing, a nefarious pre-registration scheme and exacerbating a mental health crisis. But some changes benefit students, and skepticism shouldn’t obscure the merits of updating Harvard’s archaic academic calendar. The Crimson Staff, for example, said recently that getting bogged down with term papers and take-home projects after winter holidays is “leisurely,” offering students “plenty of time” to sample fine wines, ponder life, maybe take long, windy walks along the Charles.

Actually professors know well that this “plenty of time” exists, and that’s why reading period is a quagmire. Professors assign more readings and research papers during the regular term than they otherwise would, were there less unscheduled time to finish it all. Eliminating reading period from the calendar would also eliminate the onerous work accompanying it. Where workload must be standardized among many different course offerings, as in the Core, this would be particularly effective: Harvard could force professors to get rid of superfluous readings and to choose between a few shorter papers and a single research project.

It’s important to note that barreling right into exams would in no way harm students. Most classes here are graded with a curve, and any evaluation depends on other students’ performance; you wouldn’t be able to polish outlines and finish copious note-taking, but neither would anyone else.

Clearly, reading period must die. Then there is the question of what to do with the extra time. Students from the West Coast, among others, argue that Thanksgiving vacation should be extended to give them sufficient time to fly home or relax. But a week-long Thanksgiving break would in fact be harder for students. Long summers, not short respites in the middle of the year when there’s homework to do or class schedules to plan, are the time to escape Harvard’s stressful environment. By lengthening the total period of time from the first to the last day of fall classes, a longer Thanksgiving break would merely prolong student misery amidst term papers and intense academic and social competition.

A better solution is to have fall exams before Thanksgiving. Designing its calendar, Harvard must defer to the greatest thinkers of the West: It should switch to a trimester system like the one currently in place for undergraduates at Stanford University. Trimesters would let students take nine courses in a year for the price of eight—three each term, with condensed courses providing a more concentrated academic experience without the frivolous projects. Competition from peer institutions and a shorter school year overall would hollow any excuses for a tuition hike. Although Stanford schedules its fall exams just before winter break, its very late start subjects it to the same criticisms encountered at Harvard: Students planning internships or work in the summer are stuck with a late return home, when it’s almost June and the jobs are taken.

Therefore, Harvard should modify Stanford’s calendar to make each trimester earlier by a few weeks. The fall term would begin after Labor Day, with exams before Thanksgiving. (As courses’ exam groups are published in advance, students who want desperately to get home to California or otherwise spend their late Novembers away from school could choose wisely and still get a longer Thanksgiving vacation.) With a winter term just beginning, the intense pressures to study over the holidays would be gone; and, for that matter, Thanksgiving would be salvaged as well, following immediately after fall exams.

Much earlier in the year between the winter and spring trimesters, spring break would coincide with sexy parties in Cancun and other schools’ breaks. Also, ski resorts would still have most of their slopes open, with students avoiding pricey lift tickets in the high season. For thesis writers, research seminars would end in the winter, freeing up time for an elective in the spring. And we could all get out of here in early May.

It’s difficult to foresee any disadvantages for students with a schedule like that. Had Harvard switched to this calendar in 2003-2004, for example, allowing in each term nine weeks for classes, six days for exams and one day for reading period, fall classes could have begun on Wednesday, Sept. 17—two days after they actually did—with spring final exams ending on Friday, May 7—three weeks before they actually will. Think of the prime pickings for summer jobs, think of the stress-free holiday breaks and think of the sexy parties. Those charged with presenting a student perspective to administrators should consider the merits of what is clearly a people’s calendar: trimesters, delightfully reading-period-free.

Luke Smith '04, a Crimson editor, is an economics concentrator in Quincy House.