Last week we were given three days off from the normal week to go home and eat turkey. While it was a nice break, it was much shorter than breaks at other schools that received the full week off, giving them a total of nine days off in contrast to the five days we had. It’s time we changed from having a two-day week to having an extended Thanksgiving break for several reasons.

The justification for having a two-day week before Thanksgiving break is that we have two days off for fall break earlier in the semester. We make up those two missed days before the Thanksgiving break. The problem with this is that students who live out of state often do not find it practical to fly home for a four-day fall break. Furthermore they find the Thanksgiving break too short since they have to use much of the time travelling to and from school. In addition, the two school days in the Thanksgiving week are the time when many tests are given and papers are due, so it is rare to be able to safely skip the two-day week.

Since the current break is only five days, the campus remains open for people to stay during the Thanksgiving break. This means that resident assistants must stay for duty during these five days to work at the front desks, which prohibits some of them from travelling home. With a full week off, everyone could go home and not have these issues.

Because of the two-day week, the weekend before it is also excluded from the break. This means that not having classes for just those two days before the break would lengthen the vacation by four days, an increase from five to nine days.

Finally, there’s no pressing need to have a four-day weekend in October. It’s too short for most out-of-state students to justify travelling home and unnecessary for the large number of students who live close enough to go home even with a normal weekend.

For these reasons, TCU should revise its schedule for next year to make the Thanksgiving break a full week.

Jack Enright is a sophomore political science major from Tomball.