If I Could..

If I could re-arrange the entire academic world's idea of when it's a good idea to have finals, it would be something like this: 

Most of January would be vacation.  Since T is in law school, I will state that I think January's a great month to meet with firms and other lawyerly folk to hopefully get that ever-illusive job.  New Year's resolutions, re-focusing on work, all that stuff.

School "starts" sometime in February, just in time for Lent.  Really, what could be better for enhancing the discipline of Lent than rigorously putting one's nose to the grindstone of academic work?  Yeah, that would be penance enough for me, too.  Spring break could still be sometime around Easter.  I'm all for getting the week after Easter off--who wants to vacation during a fast? 

By the end of May the semester is winding up and finals happen sometime end of May/beginning of June.  The  rest of June and all of July are also vacation.  The next semester (that is, the second semester of the school year--is this confusing you yet?) starts in August.

Yes, August.  And it continues though November.  I haven't decided if the semester should finish entirely before Thanksgiving (i.e., finals would be done before the turkey) or if there would be Thanksgiving break and then reading periods/finals.  Either way, most of December would also be vacation.  

Because seriously, folks--isn't there enough stress around the holidays without having Students Everywhere stressed to the max about finals?  Who needs that? That's not very jolly.

December could be so different than it is now.  First, most of the month would be vacation, and then, rather than worrying about next semester's classes and getting assignments emailed to you ahead of time by over-enthusiastic professors, you could just relax and enjoy the whole holiday.

[I'm not bitter.. really]

And if you recall from the beginning--January's off, too.

So there you go.  Two months off around Christmas, and two months off for the summer.  Wouldn't that be cool?

[discuss]