As I write this article, it is Sunday, Oct. 12, and I am currently on fall “break.” However, I’m in the library, and I have been here all weekend. This past week, I had midterm exams, and this upcoming week, I have projects and essays due on top of reading and other classwork.
In Pitt’s 2024-2025 academic calendar, fall break was a Monday and Tuesday, giving students four days to travel home to their families. The year before that, however, we were given a singular Friday off, just like this year.
The branding of this year’s fall break, being three days, is truly inaccurate. The two weekend days should not count as part of our break. The only real day off we had was Friday the 10th, and even then, for students who already don’t have classes on Fridays, this is just another weekend for them.
Further, the amount of money and time it takes to travel home is unrealistic for just one extra day. This is especially true for out-of-state students who live further distances inaccessible by bus. Their only option becomes purchasing a plane ticket, which gets extremely pricey. The cheapest rate I found for myself to go home this weekend was $400.
Students deserve full fall breaks, and other schools are granting them. Students at Carnegie Mellon University get an entire week off, and their calendar only counts the weekdays as part of their fall break. From the 13th to the 17th this month, CMU students get to travel to their hometowns and spend an appropriate amount of time with their families to actually decompress and step away from schoolwork.
Especially with the prevalence of mental health issues for college students, prioritizing a break in your academic rigor is vital to physical and mental well-being. The stress that students feel on a daily basis can be crushing when there is no end in sight. Fall break is intended to give students an actual step away from their laptop screens and textbooks directly after midterms. Students spend countless hours at the library in preparation for these exams and deserve more than a singular day off to look forward to.
Many students, like myself, may spend that day working anyway to try and get ahead on the copious amounts of assignments due directly after the day off. It feels a bit hypocritical to be told to enjoy our relaxation but have assignments due Monday at 8 a.m. Yes, work is part of being a college student, but if we cannot find a balance between work and rest, our mental health will suffer. Some students need the physical cancellation of classes for a few days to actually stop working.
The structure of a “long weekend” break may actually worsen stress for students. Instead of enjoying the little time they have off, they spend their day worrying about what’s on the other side of the weekend, mainly due to professors not adjusting their expectations of workload. This illusion of rest sends the wrong message to the students. If the message that one day should be enough to recover before Thanksgiving, the University is normalizing minimal rest for students’ well-being. When institutions treat one day like generosity, it shows just how out of touch they are with their students’ actual needs.
Fall break exposes the quiet contradiction of college life — we’re told to prioritize mental health, but never at the expense of productivity.
Pitt continues to implement wellness initiatives such as the therapy dog visits and the stress free zone on the eighth floor of the William Pitt Union. Their investment in these resources is beneficial, but the best mental health resource is time — time to breathe, time to walk away from the screens and time to see your loved ones, for more than just one day.
The real problem isn’t the length of fall break — it’s the academic calendar that assumes students can sprint through a marathon. When rest becomes a privilege instead of a priority, burnout becomes a guarantee.
Faith Richardson likes to write about student life, the arts and the media. Email her at [email protected].