As we are all enjoying our Fall Breaks, either at home, on campus, or somewhere else exciting, it’s interesting to think the concept of Fall Break (so meta). Yesterday at dinner I had a conversation with friend and fellow senior Ben De Winkle, who explained that one of his professors told them at math lunch about the origins of Fall Break. Apparently, Pomona used to be on a different semester schedule that started later and where first semester didn’t end until after winter break in January—just like my old high school schedule (which is not, in this case, necessarily a good thing). They didn’t use to have a Fall Break at all. When they switched to the current schedule, they didn’t at first have a Fall Break either, but apparently they quickly found that with no vacation time at all until Thanksgiving, students were completely burnt out. Thank goodness for the then-administration’s wisdom to add it in! Moral of the story: don’t take Fall Break for granted!
