We’ve all been there. You’re an eager-eyed, soon-to-be fresher waiting as the summer draws to a close and the time arrives when you will officially enter into the daunting world of student life.
The month of September eventually comes around and you watch as your friends slowly trickle away to university, leaving you alone, twiddling your thumbs and looking for something to pass the day. Finally, it’s October. You’ve seen every freshers’ week photo that your friends have put up on Facebook, you’ve caught up on every TV series you wanted to see and you’ve exhausted all possible conversation with your parents. All you want to do is go to university! So why does York have such odd term dates that we start every year in October?
The 10-week term set-up was created to ensure as many conferences are fitted into each holiday as possible. Sure, the University benefits from the added income, but the drawbacks are considerably worse than just some slightly irritated freshers.
The term system affects a range of students and hinders them in comparison to other university students. It does nothing but inconvenience us while the University reaps the benefits. For current students, finding a job in the holidays becomes a rather more difficult task. Summer jobs quickly fill up as students from other universities, who finish three or four weeks before us, take all the vacancies.
While no one is obliged to stay here for the full 10 weeks, with the University and YUSU still organising events, students are forced to choose between having fun with friends and making their way back home to make some money. Summer internships and jobs are invaluable in giving students a familiarity of the workplace. By finishing so late we miss out on the extra cash as well as the much-needed experience that a job provides.
Sports teams also have to cope with the bizarre term system. Without any training, they are expected to be ready to compete in October against other university teams who have had weeks to prepare. Ask any sports team and they will tell you how playing without any training is detrimental to their performance and how there is a big difference between the results of matches in October and the rest of the year. With sport being such a significant part of York, we seem to be shooting ourselves in the foot.
Why then, do we need 10-week terms? Our Christmas holidays are too short, our Easter too long and we always seem to be finishing when other universities are starting (or vice versa). Few other universities follow such a system and yet many of them use conferences to generate extra funds. The losers are, as always, the students, with Heslington Hall once again putting monetary gains before the needs of the student body. Of course, the University should try and make as much money as it can, but not at the expense of the students. The current set-up throws the entire year out of sync, and it’s time it was changed.
I agree with most of what you’ve said, but do you have any proof that “The 10-week term set-up was created to ensure as many conferences are fitted into each holiday as possible”?
To be honest, in theory I like our system. Three terms of ten weeks makes the most logical sense, when you consider that other unis go for a bizarre 13/17 split, with the 17-week one having Easter in the middle. On the other hand, yes, Easter is stupidly long. At least lop a couple of weeks off there and have us break up in mid-June. It’d still be late, but not stupidly so. Furthermore, one might argue that the ten week system doesn’t do the modular system any favours, since two weeks at the start and two at the end are essentially wiped out by exams and administration, leaving only six weeks of actual, proper study.
Still, not like anything’s going to change in the next seven years or so, the uni have it planned out right up till 2018 on their website…