As the Thanksgiving holiday draws near, a familiar scene of half-empty classrooms approaches USC’s campus as students prepare to go home days before the official break begins.
While Turkey Day lands on a Thursday, USC grants students Wednesday through Friday off of classes. Despite this, many students leave the weekend before the holiday, resulting in drops in attendance on Monday and Tuesday.
For USC professors, this annual routine brings a dilemma: many find themselves grappling with the decision of whether to hold classes knowing that a significant portion of their students will not not show up.
Moochan Lee, a senior studying business, said his professors were still holding class, but changed the structure to accommodate students’ plans.
“In one of my classes, they’re holding it on Zoom so we can attend that way,” said Lee. “For another one, she said it was gonna be a lighter class and not be anything that’s on the final.”
Lee is leaving Tuesday morning, and will be attending his class via Zoom. Accommodations like this are much appreciated by students like Lee.
“I haven’t been back home for a year or so, so it will be nice to go back,” he said.
Some students, like Delaney Caroll, a sophomore chemistry major, are prioritizing their well-being despite professors still holding classes. She said she was leaving Monday night despite having two classes Tuesday.
“I’m not worried about missing, I’ve done enough,” Caroll said. “Missing a day of discussion in math and another day of another class is fine if I have to fly seven hours to New York.”
She said she’s been feeling burnt out from her midterms.
“Classes are hard, life is hard, midterms are like a three month process,” said Caroll. “Why is that necessary? I feel like that’s excessive.”
Midterms have been taking a toll on another USC student, sophomore Paolo Bahrami, who is studying electrical and computer engineering.
“The midterms just don’t stop,” he said “They’re all spaced out by like a week, and there’s midterms one and two, so there’s like six straight weeks.”
His plans to go home depend on whether he has class or not; he’d like to get back as soon as possible, but just can’t afford to miss class.
“I don’t show up [to class] anymore honestly,” Bahrami said. “With the midterms and everything I just needed all the time I could to study, and it made me get further behind in all of my other classes. Now I gotta catch up before finals.”
The decision to cancel classes in the days leading up to Thanksgiving is not unique to USC, as universities across the nation grapple with similar considerations. The amount of students leaving early raises questions about the effectiveness of the current academic calendar, and whether adjustments could better accommodate students leaving campus for the full week.
Caroll said she thinks students should have the entire Thanksgiving week off.
“Most of my friends from home who go to school on the east coast have the full week, which annoys me because I’m traveling the furthest but have the least time to do so,” she said. “I have a few friends going home this weekend too, and I don’t blame them.”