Hopefully everyone enjoyed a quality couple of days at home with their families over Thanksgiving Break. I for one, am still benefiting from the bounty of leftover food I received.

I love Thanksgiving Break because it brings everyone together, you get to enjoy great food, it is rivalry weekend in college football, you can blow all of your money on Black Friday, and it is also the kickoff for Winter. Thanksgiving truly is one of the best holidays of the year. Unfortunately, there is one downside to this time of thanks.

This year I had to stay at college over Thanksgiving Break, but many of my friends traveled home to see their families. I loved seeing how happy my friends were to see their parents, siblings, and high school friends. However, even though happiness can not be bought per say, there is a cost to traveling.

Here at Florida State, I have made a lot of friends that live quite a distance away. You would think that I would mostly have friends that are from Florida, but I know quite a few people that live up North or in the mid-Atlantic area. For my friends that live farther, the price of buying a plane ticket back home is pretty sizable. It would be fine if this was a one time payment, but that is not the case. Some of my friends have to fly home for Thanksgiving, come back to school for exams, and then pay for another ticket to get back home. To me this is a costly inconvenience that could be remedied with a rescheduling of the school calendar.

This school year at FSU, classed began on August 29th. Thanksgiving Break ended on November 28th and final exams conclude on December 16th. If we were to begin the school year earlier in August, it would be very beneficial in that classes could end right before Thanksgiving as opposed to afterward. This way, once students go home they do not have to come back to school until classes resume the following semester.

I realize that by starting school earlier, you might interfere with some summer activities, but I would rather have a shorter summer than the painful tease of Winter vacation that we currently receive each November.

Even though it is only a few weeks between Thanksgiving Break and Winter Break, eliminating that space of time could prove very cost effective for many families.