I think a lot of us got the message this past wellness day of “Don’t work,” and “Enjoy yourself!” And far be it from me to punch a gift horse in the mouth, so I opted not to do any homework this past wellness day. The result? I woke up at 5 a.m. the following day to catch up.
I really want to love wellness days, but the more time I spend in university, the less and less I feel like I can appreciate them.
As a bit of discretion, I don’t want to assign blame here. There’s a lot of moving parts to the decision, and the only thing I can directly fault the University for is scheduling. I appreciate the timing of the once-a-semester wellness day happening, though I wish we had another wellness day and that they were closer to the weekend.
Was there more I could have done on my end to ensure I didn’t end up with a full day of work following the wellness day? Sure, but our wellness day landed on a Tuesday, meaning I would have had to work over the weekend or try to get a week ahead prior to the wellness day. I think this presents the central issue with wellness days: They’re never convenient for everybody.
As much as I would love to take a day and try to forget about all my looming responsibilities, most of us live on or around campus and are surrounded by school supplies, bookbags, bricks and other reminders of college. There’s a constant flood of emails and reminders about happenings on campus and, unless you own a car, you’ll probably end up passing by NC State if you do want to get away.
I think this is part of the frustration of being in college. As students, we are always taking our work with us. Oftentimes we have multiple things going on outside of classes. Work isn’t always classwork. Sometimes it’s labor to maintain student organizations or a job immediately after classes. Sometimes, it’s not always a matter of whether or not we want to decompress, but instead how to not be so focused on college without sacrificing more time and energy into college.
How can we take a break if our attention is continuously demanded?
I’m not asking for the University to correspond with all of its students’ employers, but it seems there are some things NC State -– not just as administrators but as a collegiate ecosystem — can do to improve wellness days.
If students themselves can’t schedule their own wellness days, then these days should at least be put as extensions to the weekend. The weekend is supposed to be time reserved to not go to work or classes. Though not everyone gets to enjoy that privilege, it would be nice if we could have the segment of the week without classes extended, rather than the start-stop model we currently have.
I’d also appreciate it if tests didn’t circle wellness days like vultures. It’s really hard to take advantage of a wellness day when you know you have an exam later that same week.
In that same vein, having professors go lighter on assignments for the days leading up to a wellness day and after would make it easier to decompress then. While it is hard to slow down a curriculum, I hope most classes aren’t requiring students to put their entire weekends on hold for one topic.
Again, I want to look forward to wellness days, but I think a lot of students know that taking a wellness day to back away from classes means diving deeper that following day. I can’t imagine a world where that is the intent — to give students a break and immediately punish them for it.
As it stands right now, it’s starting to feel like the prerequisite for a wellness day is working yourself to oblivion the night before. I’m certain that with a bit more careful planning, they can be something far more useful. I think the only way that will happen is if the University, by way of professors or administrators, talks to us. How else can wellness days work for us if we hardly get a say about them?
