Recently, the University of Waterloo has been piloting a new reading week, which made some people unhappy due to the shortening of Orientation week. However, even though there are some drawbacks to Orientation week, the reading week has a fair number of advantages that make it worthwhile for this pilot. Granted, I didn’t experience the full Orientation week since I was a 2016 first year, so this means I only have experience based on the current pilot.
First of all, it’s during thanksgiving weekend. It’s always good for students to have the ability to go home and have dinner with their parents. This is important for engineers as we often spend so much time submerged in our schoolwork and extracurriculars that we often don’t have time to spend with our parents and family. Not only that, but with an extended weekend, people who live further away from the university, like in Ottawa, Vancouver, or even the United States, can visit their parents too, as a five day weekend gives a lot more travel time. The cost of this is therefore more justified as well, as paying for a 2-day trip is much less viable than a 5-day trip, which in some cases could be extended to the whole week.
For first year students, this may also be the first time they get to go home since they were dropped off by their parents for move in and orientation week. Different first years obviously experience first year differently, and if they’re homesick, it’s a great chance to relieve that feeling over the reading break. I happen to be a lucky person who’s home is just a GO bus ride away, so I don’t feel that as often. However, with Waterloo Engineering (and even other programs) being so competitive to get into, especially for international students, we should give them a chance during the first term to visit home and potentially make themselves feel less homesick during the pre-midterm season. This is also fair for the students who did not get to or opted out of orientation week. The new schedule doesn’t affect them as much, but they may still want time off of school to visit their families and maintain relationships with their friends.
Other universities have reading weeks too. McMaster (although they start a bit earlier in terms of classes and orientation week) and UTM (University of Toronto – Mississauga) both come to mind in this case. Thus, students also have the chance to see their old high school friends and catch up with them over the week. I usually visit my old high school around this time and say hello to my old teachers, and it’s good free time for the student. Although we can’t exactly push back our schedule due to coop, residence don orientation, and a variety of other reasons, it’s still important to take the reading week into factor for days off for students. Many students get burnt out within the first month of engineering, especially those who may be struggling in the program, and offering that break seems to be working for other universities, and can perhaps impact us in a positive way.
Another thing that makes reading week important is hell week. If you don’t know, engineering hell week is the midterm week, during which all your midterms are scheduled. For first years, hell week is right after the reading week, whereas some upper years have it the week after. Offering the reading week gives us the opportunity to catch up on our courses. It’s 5 days to just summarize what we’ve done in our courses and effectively prepare for midterms by doing practice exams and past assignments, which we probably wouldn’t be able to do during school days, since we’d be learning in lectures. Personally, I have three lab courses this term, and to catch up on all my other work and doing these prelabs is really important, as I’m not allowed to miss any labs/prelab write ups. This break has given me the opportunity to do everything mentioned in this paragraph while still being able to hang out with old high school friends.
Reading week can also seem logical since we have one in the Winter term (albeit, that one IS a full week). We also have no reading week in the summer, but we do have a longer term break after that. To have one reading week per year seems unbalanced in that case, because that means fall would be the busiest term if we didn’t have it. We’d have the 10 days after the term as our only relaxation period. Winter we currently have the full reading week and the 7 days after to recuperate, and summer we have around 3 weeks before the fall term starts (really though, if you’re involved in orientation week it’s only a 1-2 week break). Since not everyone is involved in orientation week, we have to remain impartial to other faculties and students in giving opportunities for them to go home and visit their parents. Coop also comes into play, as students on coop don’t get a reading week, so they should get to go home when they can as well during their study terms. Nanotechnology engineers happen to have a fall-winter coop, then a spring study term. That means no reading week in between, and thus 8 months of straight work.
So, I’m very much for the pilot of this reading week, as well as against the further shortening of Orientation week. And although I like the idea of a full Orientation week to make it seem more authentic and not rushed, I think it’s important to highlight some of the ideas that made the pilot run in the first place.
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