Everyone remembers the novelty of a “snow day.” Waking up to a blanket of white snow on the ground, only for you to realize you got the day off of school. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, it seems that snow days have become a thing of the past. Schools are now replacing snow days with remote learning days, having students remain with their curriculum instead of giving them the day off. What does this mean for students, and what do students think about having snow days ripped away from them so suddenly? 

When the meteorologists predicted the snow last week, it threw the University into a frenzy. They began closing every building on campus and telling professors to plan for remote learning days. The students did not take too kindly to this, as most students feel that, since we already don’t get a Spring Break, we should be able to take a few snow days as a well-deserved break, but also have a few remote learning days so that we can stay on track with our curriculum. Life on campus has been stressful since last semester. Many students feel that last semester was a sprint and this semester is like we’re running a full marathon. We are in school until May, which means we have more time for our curriculum this semester than we did last semester. Give us three snow days, and then we can use the rest of the time for remote learning. The students deserve a break.

Another reason students think we should have a few snow days instead of just full remote learning is that students will get tired of just doing classes on Zoom. Bad weather is already a hit on students’ motivation, so imagine what doing just online classes does to their motivation as well. While the pandemic has made students more used to online classes, we can still understand how hard it is to stay focused when you’re stuck in your room where you’re most comfortable. It’s very hard to do your work when you could instead be asleep or playing a video game. 

I think we can all understand that being in an online setting is hard for our motivation, yet we can also understand the importance of staying safe and healthy during this pandemic, but when our breaks are taken away from us, students need an alternative and snow days are just mother nature’s way of telling the University “The students need a break!”