THERE ARE NO CLASSES BUT DON’T CALL IT READING WEEK

So, Reading Week at Schulich as an MBA student is a new concept to me. After teaching at multiple universities prior to doing my MBA, Reading Week was more like a week-long recess, an actual break, or even more novel (pun intended), a vacation! Regardless of how you defined it or what you did during it, it did not involve reading unless there was a good novel you wanted to catch up on while waiting at the airport for your flight to depart. Reading Week implied time off to regenerate by taking an break from school work. Professors put on their out-of-office-replies and it was understood students would spend the week either sleeping, socializing, vacationing, or all of the above but “reading” aka studying, not a chance.

At Schulich however, it’s a whole different scenario. I was talking with some first year MBA students who had grand plans to take off for the week to recharge only to discover they plans were squashed with exams and assignments. Sure, some students do manage to escape BUT as the moniker implies, you’re actually expected to read for school! Augh! Now don’t get me wrong, I will take a break from classes and appreciate the opportunity to catch up on work, the chance to see some friends and let them know I am alive and well, and even sleep in but… don’t call it reading week because truth be told it’s not even a week. I have a class on the Monday to make up for the class lost to Thanksgiving; that’s not even the worse of it—some students had and exam and assignments due right after the break. So, that only leave four days and just as a reminder, it’s seven days in a row that make up a week.

I realize I’m winging but let’s call a spade a spade—it’s not a week, it’s more like a quartet, 96 hours of catching up on school work so the last six weeks of the fall term isn’t completely insane. So, while I am grateful for the time because there are no classes and it allow me to write this rant in my PJs, the week should be renamed—Working Week, Study Week—just don’t call it Reading Week.