To our college professors,

Papers and projects should be illegal over the holidays and break. Having quizzes and exams scheduled for the week we return from break should also be outlawed. I think I understand why you do it. I think it’s maybe because you think it will keep us from forgetting all the information you have just shoved in our brains the previous weeks, but I’m here to let you know that the benefits do not outweigh the costs in this scenario. The holidays and breaks should be time for us students to spend with our friends and family.

I’m sure you thought we would have time to do it earlier so it’s really only our fault that we have work over break but honestly, you didn’t allow for us to do any “extra” work before we left for break. The weeks leading up to break are also full of tests, quizzes, and of course our eight to ten page papers you love reading so much. So the dilemma really is that you assign far too much work too close to the holiday season.

We really appreciate that you care so deeply about our education, but we think you’ve become a little too needy when it comes to our time and our classmates’ time. We spend quite a bit of our precious time with you compared to the amount of time we get to spend with our friends and family, so when we come home for break, all we would like to do is submerge ourselves in all things not remotely related to school. You’ve been disrupting this process for us and we aren’t sure if you’ve noticed or not but we aren’t handling it so well.

From comments ranging from “you all look exhausted” and “you really should be taking care of yourselves,” I’m sure you’ve noticed we haven’t been doing so hot and I can assure you it hasn’t been due to our perfect attendance to college parties. Shoot, what’s a party even look like these days because I don’t have time for those anymore. School is all we do anymore and all we are asking is for you to respect our precious time with the only people that can help us maintain any kind of mental health.

Here is how I think we can all work on this. We are going to promise to give you our full-undivided attention when we are in class if you promise to allow us to have some sort of a break away from you and your work when we go home so we can adequately de-stress ourselves. We believe you will see an increase in participation and work quality if you allow us a couple of days to recuperate. Thank you for understanding and we hope you will provide us with the time needed to become successfully functioning human beings again.

Sincerely,

The students you’re pushing past the breaking point