 "Photo:")
As Thanksgiving break approaches, I can feel the excitement gradually swelling up inside me like a Butterball turkey, plumping as it slowly roasts. Thanksgiving is a time for reflecting on our lives, being grateful for what we have and ingesting a week’s worth of food and drink in a matter of hours. I love it.
But there is one aspect of the holiday season which many students dread — the inevitable homework over Thanksgiving break. There always seems to be that one spiteful professor who has nothing better to do than devise cruel new ways to ruin our vacation.
Sometimes it’s blatant, “Read pages three through 112 over the break — you will be tested.” Sometimes it’s a bit more insidious, like an innocuous due date on the syllabus which just happens to coincide with the day classes resume. However they do it, professors always find a way to swindle some of our time.
But, believe it or not, your professors don’t congregate in some clandestine location, all huddled together, scheming ways to steal your vacation — at least, most don’t. If a professor assigns material over a break, it’s probably in the best interest of the student to study it.
We students tend to think of vacation time as our own. If anyone wants to take it away, it’ll be over our cold, dead bodies. To be honest, I’m no different, but as much as I hate to admit it, there is some validity to the notion that homework over a break is a good thing.
I can’t speak for others, but I tend to get relatively brain dead when I’m not in school. I still engage in leisure reading, but it lacks a level of critical analysis that is essential to mental development. Homework, however, forces my mind to function on a level much closer to that which is required for higher education.
That’s why professors burden us with loads of homework over Thanksgiving break.
It’s not a heartless act of sadism. They genuinely want to keep our minds sharp so when we return to school we don’t feel like lobotomy patients trying to learn calculus in Chinese. It’s a considerate effort on their part to prepare us for the future — and by that I don’t just mean our imminent return to class.
We’re in college to get an education, but we also need preparation for professional life. When we leave the cushy embrace of collegiate life to enter the professional sector, we’ll be expected to work all year. Even if you plan on teaching, you’ll have work to do correcting papers, tests and quizzes while cursing students for getting time off.
Think of doing homework or projects over Thanksgiving break as practice for real life. It isn’t always fun being responsible, but in a few short years you won’t have much of a choice in the matter, so you may as well get used to it.
The nice part is, for now, you still get a full week to loaf around, watch football and eat too much. So this year, while you sit at home stuffing your face with turkey, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce, do the little bit of homework you have and just be thankful you’re still in school. It could be a lot worse.
James Jelenko can be reached at
jjelenko@theorion.com
Be the first to comment on this article!