For most college students, the monotony of assignment after assignment can be crushing. The pressure to keep producing some of their best work despite more being piled on day after day can push someone from caring about their success.
The spring semester includes large stretches of weeks where there are no scheduled breaks. As a precaution against burn out, NJIT sought to include one additional day off in the Spring 2025 semester to ease the burden on students. An email was sent out to students in November 2024 asking whether they would prefer an additional reading day or a wellness day implemented throughout the semester. Students picked the latter.
The wellness day is scheduled for Thursday, April 3. On this day, the university will remain open, but classes will be canceled for all students.
Calling the day “Wellness Day” suggests that the university intends for students to use this day to relax and decompress from their everyday stressors. However, many students – myself included – do not see it this way.
At first, the overall reaction of students seemed to be positive, with their first thought being how they would catch up on sleep or meet up with old friends. However, Teagan Lowrie, a first-year Chemical Engineering major, expressed that in reality, students would “probably end up using the day to study.”
NJIT students notice and appreciate that our administration endeavors to show that it cares about its students. As Lowrie also points out, “professors make a great effort to let [students] know about CCAPS and mental health services.” However, while the consideration of our mental health is admired and respected by the student body, a vast majority of students feel that the wellness day is not the most effective way to lessen our burden.
The addition of a wellness day in the middle of the semester brings up many concerns about the class instruction that will be missed and how due dates for assignments will be affected. If the day was about pushing deadlines by one day, that could be achieved while classes were still in session. If it was about having a free day, attendance could be made optional for those who want to attend class. At its core, a wellness day should help improve the mental health of students.
Without additional provisions in place, wellness day falls short of what it could truly do for students during a hectic couple of weeks of the semester. A more effective option would be to make wellness day Friday, April 4. Then, students would be able to make plans for a long weekend. This falls more in line with what wellness should be; it’s not just a catch-up day for more school-related assignments, but rather a chance to make personal plans or arrange a short trip. Wellness encompasses so many more aspects besides sleeping in or having additional time to study.
College students need to be prepared for a life where there is more to get up for in the morning than assignments and assessments. By giving them the chance to make plans and hang out with their friends, it would teach them about balance and having a healthy social life.
Another possible change could be for the Dean of Students to allow each student a wellness day of their own choosing where they were excused from class without a doctor’s or police’s note. Something that NJIT fails to recognize with a university-wide wellness day is that students have different needs. If someone has more classes on a Wednesday than someone else, a Thursday off would not do them as much of a benefit. There are also some students who may not have classes on Thursday entirely, in which case a wellness day would also not be beneficial.
While the wellness day is not the best solution to students’ stress, it is a commendable step in the right direction. In the future, it is important for them to recognize that poor mental health is not something that can be fixed in a singular school day. True wellness is being able to find a balance between a student’s interests and their degree’s obligations.
