With classes back in session, there’s one question on everyone’s lips: How was your break?

Pauses in the academic calendar give students time to get out of the classroom and go home. More than that, they’re essential to preventing burnout. With breaks on our minds — and more time off in February and March — we’re taking a closer look at GW’s academic calendar.

To put it simply, the University’s schedule presents some interesting pros and cons. But what’s best for some students doesn’t work for everyone. The ideal academic calendar would include breaks that enable every student, regardless of their destination and financial status, to truly relax and regroup. Otherwise, the breaks GW provides wouldn’t be much of a break at all.

Any student from New Jersey — and there’s no shortage of them — can tell you it’s easy to make the most of shorter breaks like GW’s fall break in October or President’s Day Weekend in February when your hometown is a short train or car ride away from D.C.

But for students with hometowns farther away, booking expensive round-trip flights weeks in advance may be the only way for them to reasonably get home — only to come back to Foggy Bottom just a few days later.

Here are the facts: Including both domestic and international students, 47 percent of all students enrolled at GW in 2023 lived outside of the Northeast and DMV area. The average cost of a domestic round-trip ticket during Thanksgiving last year was $268 a person — that’s before prices spiked in October. Meanwhile, Amtrak tickets from D.C. to Delaware could have cost as low as $9.

In practice, that means students who live outside of a relatively small region of the U.S. generally aren’t able to go home as frequently or as long as their peers. With almost half of students looking at disproportionately pricey transportation, longer breaks give them more bang for their buck. Fortunately, officials extended last year’s Thanksgiving Break to include Monday and Tuesday in addition to Wednesday through Friday off from class — a welcome change of pace that students hopefully took advantage of.

Thanksgiving Break isn’t without its pitfalls, though. The intersection of hometown visits, looming exams, colder weather and less daylight can exacerbate seasonal depression, or seasonal affective disorder, which makes tasks from getting up in the morning to studying exhausting. Last year’s finals schedule kept some students on campus until Dec. 19. Now, imagine what that’d be like for students who haven’t been able to return home or leave campus all semester — especially when the University closed some of its facilities, like dining options in District House and the University Student Center, on Dec. 15.

All of that’s to say that what one student sees as just another long weekend could be a rare opportunity for rest, relaxation and recuperation for another student. Full-week breaks for Thanksgiving do make a difference to students’ well-being, and they should continue. Better yet, officials could consider extending fall break by taking time from elsewhere. Designated make-up days — which most professors seem to disregard, from anecdotal experience — and reading days contribute to a bloated semester. Why not trim the fat and give students more days of break during or after the semester or simply end the year sooner?

The University’s schedule isn’t set in stone. GW introduced a two-day fall break in 2016 in response to advocacy from the Student Association. And after students petitioned to cancel classes on Election Day in 2020, officials gave them the day off. The University can be practical when it comes to rearranging its calendar, and the past shows adjustments are possible if there’s a genuine desire for change.

GW’s academic calendar should reflect officials’ commitment to prioritizing student well-being: trim the schedule, consolidate days off and address scheduling complexities. The time students have out of class and away from campus is truly make-or-break.

The editorial board consists of Hatchet staff members and operates separately from the newsroom. This week’s staff editorial was written by Contributing Opinions Editor Riley Goodfellow and Opinions Editor Ethan Benn based on discussions with Contributing Culture Editor Jenna Baer, Editorials Assistant Paige Baratta, Contributing Social Media Director Anaya Bhatt, and Social Media Director Ethan Valliath.