"Spring Break" 2021, The Reviews Are In

Last week, Elon students were given Tuesday and Wednesday off. This was Elon administration’s idea of a Covid-safe spring break, but many students feel that the “break” fell short.

The purpose of the two break days was to help students get “sufficient sleep” and to “improve their well-being” as Jon Dooley, vice president for student life at Elon, said in an email. Travel was also widely discouraged during these two break days, as the school did not want Covid cases to spike again. 

Although the administration created this break to give students a pause and keep them well-rested, Elon students did not feel this way. 

“The two break days were nice, although they seemed counterintuitive,” first-year student Annie Leeper says. “Most people I know traveled during the break and did not stay on campus as the university intended.”

Many Elon students traveled home during the break days or went on vacation in an effort to gain some sort of break. These students were faced with repercussions, such as mass amounts of homework and receiving unexcused absences for attempting to attend their classes online.

The university not wanting students to leave campus due to Covid is reasonable—nobody wants more exposure from outside sources and for Covid cases to rise. Ultimately though, the university cannot control and stop students from leaving. Instagram, Snapchat, and other social media platforms were filled with Elon students’ vacation pictures and photos from the comfort of their own homes. Very few students stayed on campus, similar to the other break day given in February when many students traveled, too. 

And while all travel is risky right now, precautions can be taken to do so as safely as possible. Yet, many organizations such as Greek life faced consequences for traveling, even if it was done safely and within precautions.

Because no real spring break exists this semester and travel is restricted, students are expected to go a long time without seeing family. It’s a complicated dilemma with no real winner: either staying on campus, potentially lonely and missing home, or travel and be faced with consequences.

Besides going on vacation and using the spring break days those ways, coursework such as homework, tests, and projects were given over the break days. 

“We were still given a lot of homework which was due the following day,” says Leeper. “Therefore, it did not seem like much of a break from school.” 

This forced many students to focus on school throughout the break instead of taking time to relax or pursue their own mental health. If the school was concerned about giving students more time to sleep or relax, the extra homework and tests when students came back were extremely counteractive to this. 

Although the school attempted to provide a relaxing break for the student body, the break days did not do what the school intended them to. They did not relax students or put them at ease and they did not stop traveling either. Instead, students were either traveling home, going on vacation, or rapidly working on assignments. And, they were missing class doing so, pushing this middle-of-the-week mini-break past the point of counterproductive. Saint Patrick’s Day timing also may not have been the brightest idea on the school’s part. 

Overall, this break only gets a one-star rating from us. Don’t recommend it.

Cover photo found here.