Living the Institutions: Reading breaks aren’t actually breaks

Living the Institutions is a column about the institutions and norms that impact the experience of undergraduate students at UBC.

Marie Erikson is a fourth-year student in the philosophy honours program and author of the column Living the Institutions. In her work, she aims to mix theory, experience, policy and norms through clear and nuanced writing. She enjoys an engaging conversation about cats, coffee or whatever event or philosophical conception is deeply bothering her at the moment.

In just a few weeks, students should feel the sweet relief of reading break, giving them a week of real, well-deserved rest. But in reality, students get a brief two days to try to catch up on all their work before being launched into final exams and papers.

The first known call for a fall reading break was made in a 1991 Ubyssey editorial, but the first break didn’t happen until 2021. It is, of course, good that students get a couple extra class-free days in addition to a federal holiday in the fall (or a full week in the spring). But reading break, as its title implies, can only loosely be considered a break when its functional purpose is giving students time to catch up and work ahead on coursework and having them spend time, you know, ‘reading.’

As the 1991 editorial understood over a decade before I was born, students are always expected to work. We’re expected to work late nights, and we can’t clock out of the job — school — we pay for. With our increased awareness of student mental health, the ‘break’ aspect of reading break is discussed, but the obligation to work through the break remains. I have even witnessed professors strongly encourage their students to rest and take care of themselves during the break, only to have a midterm on the first weekday after we return or set a project deadline on one of the break days.

Recovering from intense academic work and stress is rather difficult, if not impossible, while obligated to work on that exact intense academic work and under that exact stress. Because that obligation continues, reading break is not a time where students can truly take care of themselves and recover before plunging back into their studies. The proposal for the two-day break may have referenced improving "student spirits," but it was intended to provide more studying time in advance of final exams and the vaguer goal of responding to surveys of faculty and staff. Reading break is not designed to give students a break from academics.

Students also tend to have other responsibilities such as jobs, volunteering or family commitments that continue during the break. While students get to choose whether to take any particular available job or volunteer position, many students need to work to fund their studies or gain experience needed for working post-graduation. With tuition, housing and other living expenses, working as a student is generally not a choice — unless you have a well-off enough family or hundreds of thousands in savings covering your costs. The problem is worse if you are an international student who pays more in tuition while being less eligible for UBC aid.

Even students who can afford to get through their degree without work often need to work or volunteer to afford to live after their degree. True ‘entry-level’ jobs, ones that require no previous experience, can seem rare nowadays, meaning that if a student wants to work in a field after graduation, they likely need to have already worked before completing university. And unless that student did not start their degree straight out of high school, working through university is required to meet this expectation. Work experience also extends one’s network, which opens many more opportunities.

No person, department or policy at UBC is individually responsible for the economic difficulties that force students to have work experience before graduating. They also cannot single-handedly eliminate their sources. These facts do not, however, render the university or its academic and non-academic units incapable of lessening the burden on their students.

For example, the Senate could implement a measure that prohibits any assignment due dates on holidays or during midterm breaks, similar to the existing ban on holding midterm exams right before the final exam period. Passing a Senate measure is a lengthy endeavour, but such a rule could significantly improve student health without remarkably disrupting the flow of a course — or at least any course I have taken in my years at UBC.

The university could also implement guidelines on how much coursework should be expected per credit received for a course and its distribution across the term. Even within the same discipline, expectations can vary wildly for a standard three-credit course. Though such a project would require some research, it could give students consistency and help them make educated decisions. Since syllabi are rarely, if ever, available in advance, more consistency would help students decide whether to take a full courseload ( if their financial situation affords them that opportunity).

Professors can also lessen the problem individually by uploading their syllabi in advance and being mindful of the amount of time that their course will demand outside of class. From my observations, they may have distorted ideas about healthy workloads from the workaholism entrenched in academia, yet planning courses with student academics and wellbeing in mind could lead to balanced course loads and ultimately better student learning.

Finally, departments could consider adding more upper-level, project-based research courses that would give students opportunities to work as a team to accomplish a task while learning more in their field of study. Such courses could combine elements of a seminar and an honours thesis, allowing students to produce a final product they can both learn from and use as evidence of collaboration, project management and other skills related to their discipline and that are applicable outside of academia.

A group of students, for example, could produce a work for a general public under the guidance of a professor working in that area. This project could require not only skill and knowledge in the field but also the ability to collaborate, reach outside academia and bring a project to a conclusion. With these sorts of courses, students could gain experience and continue their studies simultaneously.

Unless UBC fundamentally restructures its undergraduate student program, students will never be free from the pressure to study and work on assignments until the term ends. Grades impact students' futures, especially for students who may want to apply to graduate school or get a scholarship. And for students who hope to have an income after graduation, responsibilities will continue through reading breaks and summer break. UBC can’t fix the economy or bring us back to a time when entry-level jobs were widespread. It can nonetheless alleviate the problems students face when studying in its own programs.

One of the best solutions may even be the oldest. The Senate needs to pass a motion extending reading break to a full week. It would certainly support students, but the change would also allow faculty to better prepare for their comparably busy end-of-term work. Faculty could therefore better support students and produce the research that UBC loves to use in asserting its status as a top university. Students would also get better value for their tuition, as professors would not have reason to cancel or heavily modify classes on the days after reading break to account for low attendance.

No one is reasonably expecting UBC to single-handedly change our society and economy, but it is expected to do the best it can for its students. But they need not take 30 years to make small changes happen.

And to Senate, how long will it take to pass a motion extending fall reading week to an actual week? A change that would be so widely popular need not take 30 years.

In just a few weeks, students should feel the sweet relief of reading break, giving them a week of real well-deserved rest. But in reality, students get a brief two days to try to catch up on all their work before being launched into final exams and papers.

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