Winter Break is Too Long

Winter break is too long.

At 37 days, winter break is shorter than summer, but longer than other vacations like spring break — a sort of vacation purgatory. The result is an awkward interruption between the fall and spring semesters, fracturing the academic year.

Before you reproach me, hear me out. I love a long vacation as much as the next person. I relish our months-long summer, our week-long spring break, and even our occasional Monday holidays (except for the ones that Harvard eliminated).

In fact, I want more. And if we want more holidays — like Election Day, the week of Thanksgiving, or a fall break — the days have to come from somewhere. Rather than let winter break hoard all of them, we could spread them a little more equitably throughout the year.

Take, for example, our New Haven neighbors: Yale College has a five-day recess in October, a week off for Thanksgiving, and a whopping two-week-long spring break. How does it accomplish this feat of scheduling? Their winter break is slightly shorter, and they start classes a few days before, rather than after, Labor Day (without making their summer any shorter).

If Yale can figure this out, so can Harvard.

Winter break is, of course, not all bad. The first few weeks are restful, regenerative, and necessary — but there is a diminishing marginal return. An extensive break eventually takes the wind out of my sails. I become accustomed to being home, and it only makes the inevitable return to school all the more drastic.

No one likes getting out of bed in the morning, but a long winter break is like a bear’s deep hibernation — one from which it is especially challenging to arise.

Then too, a long break can make you forget what you learned in the previous semester. This is the same argument promoted by proponents of year-round schooling. While many students find fulfillment and stimulation during the summer through research and internships, simply sitting at home for such an extended period in the winter only serves as a detriment to a student’s learning.

Besides, since the winter breaks of many other colleges seem to end earlier, it feels like no other college students — our hometown friends from high school — are home by the last week of our break anyway. I can’t imagine any significant loss to having winter break be four and a half weeks rather than five and a half.

While it is true that students may work internships over the winter, this seems to be a somewhat rare option. Besides, breaks should be a time to relax — not to fill every waking hour with ever more work, lest you burn yourself out. Even so, Harvard’s long summers provide more than adequate time for students to gain professional experience.

And again, winter break would only need to be a week or so shorter. Students would still have time to do their wintertide activities, and the vacation days would not be lost but reallocated.

Ultimately, it is not just about how many vacation days you have — it’s about how you use them. A more even distribution of breaks would provide a much-appreciated respite throughout the year.

So when it comes to winter break, less is more.

Matthew R. Tobin ’27, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a double concentrator in Government and Economics in Winthrop House.