Colleges should be on the same academic schedule because it will allow family and friends who are enrolled in different colleges more time to spend together throughout their busy semesters.
With over 70 percent of colleges having a two-semester academic year, there are often times minor nuisances in these schedules that prevent you from seeing your other university friends and family throughout the year.
One of these nuisances is that some Georgia colleges start spring break the first week of March while others might start in the last week of March.
KSU’s spring 2019 calendar shows spring break begins on March 30, 2019 while UGA begins their spring break on March 11, 2019. This prevents friends and family members from different colleges to have get-togethers during their busy semesters.
“I find as you get older it gets more difficult to keep up with friends as you’re living more and more separate lives,” said sophomore sociology major Andie Carter. “The same break schedule will definitely make it easier to keep up with my distant friends.”
Some people may not be inclined to have similar break schedules due to the possibility of causing more crowded vacation spots and having an independent office of registrars who do not actively coordinate with one another.
While causing crowded vacations is a likely concern, this concern will only happen at specific vacation spots such as popular beach cities in Florida, resorts in Mexico, and other mostly-coastal places. Regardless, this situation can give people the opportunity to think of new and exciting ideas that are not mainstream to spend their vacation with friends and family they normally cannot see throughout the semester.
Even though students keep up with each other through technology and social media throughout the semesters, in-person contact between friends across universities lacks because of these varying break schedules.
As Dr. Graham C.L. Davey of Psychology Today outlines, it is the quality of social interactions rather than the quantity we encounter in social media that makes us happy. By broadening our social connections we make them shallower. Keeping quality interactions with a few real friends will make us feel less isolated and more socially satisfied.
Because breaks are vitally important to students, there should be a change in the way these breaks are coordinated in order to bring good friends and family across different colleges together.
To remedy the uncoordinated schedules, the office of the registrar should collaborate with the respective local colleges in Georgia to address this concern. Starting with local colleges before coordinating with colleges further away will make it easier to have communication going between the schedule planners, thus resulting in a more achievable goal.
Allowing more opportunities to bring our generation together in high-quality, less-digital settings will always be beneficial for keeping healthy relationships between our family and friends.
