Ever since I was in kindergarten, I have been confused about the role of February break in the school year. Unlike winter break, when you celebrate the holidays, or April break, which is a welcome respite after the never-ending month of March, February break is just there. You come back from school after winter break, and barely six weeks later, you have another break. It seems the minute you finish midterms, February break arrives. February break isn’t even a good time to travel; April break is the undisputed superior travel time. 

February break gets in the way of everything. As winter sports start to wrap up and teams go into their championships, February break puts everything on pause. As the second-semester starts and your schedule switches, February break puts everything on pause. As you start studying new topics in your classes now that midterms are finally over, February break puts everything on pause. 

At what point are we going to ask ourselves, what exactly is February break doing for us?

I will concede February break has its merits–namely time to relax after the admittedly exhausting January. Granted, you can get your life together before spring comes. But at some point we need to face the facts: February break is not necessary.

In my ideal world, the five days of February break would be redistributed to create five long weekends throughout the months of February and March. This would make the two months much more bearable without completely disrupting everyone’s lives. 

Until that happens, I will be spending February break thinking about how little I appreciate February break.