College is a very stressful time for students, and mental health is becoming a top priority for many people. Eliminating Friday classes would allow students more time to study, catch up and work on their mental health.
Scheduling classes is already a daunting task for students. The cherry on top each semester for many is the struggle of scheduling around the dreaded Friday class. Whether it consists of overloading on Tuesdays and Thursdays or fighting for the last few seats in a Monday and Wednesday class, many students will do whatever it takes to get rid of the fifth day of their school week.
This move away from a traditional five-day school week should not be seen as a way for students to slack off but rather as an encouragement to help stabilize students’ mental and physical health and to create healthier weekly habits.
Additionally, many students have to manage a job while in school, and a four-day school week would allow students more time to balance their work and school schedules. Removing Friday classes would play a part in taking some of the weight of time management off their shoulders in this case.
Even workplaces internationally are converting to a four-day workweek, and there has been an uptick in happier and more productive environments in some cases. In fact, more and more companies are choosing to make this change to improve their employees’ mental health and efficiency.
A recent study run in the U.K. found that “39% of employees were less stressed, and 71% had reduced levels of burnout at the end of the trial. Likewise, levels of anxiety, fatigue and sleep issues decreased, while mental and physical health both improved.”
The study also concluded that employees were much more effective in balancing work and life when put on a four-day workweek schedule as opposed to a traditional five-day schedule.
The success of this four-day workweek could produce the same results if translated into the college narrative. By expanding the length of classes on Monday and Wednesday, students would spend the same amount of instructional time within a classroom a week, not affecting the time spent on material, but only the amount of days spent in class.
This change would, understandably, come with challenges, including less classroom space. Longer classes would lead to fewer classes being held, which adds to the already impossible task for students to get into the courses they need.
I argue, however, that opening the option for more classes to be held online would solve many of these issues, creating limitless amounts of new sections for courses without the confinement of classroom size and availability.
Many schools nationwide have already begun to cut down on the amount of Friday classes held during the week. And this is not a new fad. As early as the beginning of the 2000s, universities, such as California State University, held over 60% fewer classes on Fridays compared to Tuesdays, according to The New York Times’s Katie Hafner.
Meanwhile, many of Clemson University’s standard meeting times for classes that involve Monday and Wednesday also include a Friday class.
Many school districts throughout the U.S. have also chosen to adopt the four-day schedule. From the 650 schools in 2020 to the 850 presently, many have found that the new schedule has led to improvements in attendance, morale and other areas, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
A four-day week would be more beneficial for students in the long run and would allow for a more productive environment with increased mental health benefits for students. They would be given the opportunity to prioritize their health and balance their work, school and social lives more effectively.
Schools are switching, and as more continue to see similar results, it may be only a matter of time before universities like Clemson do the same.
Kylie Tutterrow is a sophomore political science major from Spartanburg, South Carolina. Kylie can be reached at [email protected].
