In response to my earlier column, I received an email from a colleague from the Built Environment. He disagreed with my harsh tone toward students. In his view, it makes sense for students to plan their vacations around the expensive periods and the “third week” is the most logical option in this respect. If necessary, they can participate in education online. I couldn’t find a third week anywhere in my department’s annual calendar, nor the right to attend online lectures at this on-campus university. Still, he had a point. TU/e's academic year calendar is far, far too full.

The damned quarter system, with its staccato schedule of 8 weeks of lectures, 2 weeks of exams, interrupted only by bank holidays (and MomenTUm) is really tiring. Tiring for students and departments alike. There’s no room at all for unexpected events. Being sick for a week means a huge backlog. Consequently, sick faculty just keep working (I'm curious to see if the Employee Experience Survey will indicate that again this year), and motivated sick students just show up to lectures and infect their classmates.

The academic year calendars at other universities aren’t this full. For example, some universities start the first semester with 12 weeks of lectures, then schedule four weeks off for students to work on assignments and projects. This is followed by exams and deadlines for turning in those projects. Students who wish to take a vacation can schedule it – in consultation with their peers – if there’s any group work to be done. Two semesters per year are organized like this.

This seems like a very big change, but it's actually not that big. We now have 14 teaching weeks, 2 extra weeks and 4 exam weeks per semester; this would change to 12 teaching weeks, 4 project weeks and 4 exam weeks (or something along those lines). If you’re sick for a week it’s not a huge disaster, because there’s room to catch up.

In this case, however, we should make it very clear to students that they’re expected to be available for teaching or exams during teaching and exam weeks. Even if these have to be rescheduled at the last minute. Planning ski vacations (or any kind of vacations for that matter) is entirely at your own risk.