Thanksgiving travels

In a few days college students around the country will pack up and go home for Thanksgiving break. All I have been thinking about this week (aside from all of the homework I have to do) is the few cherished days I will have before dead week and finals. But for many students, they are faced with the choice to spend hundreds of dollars to fly home, or spend Thanksgiving alone and wait the two weeks to go home for Christmas break to see their families. 

Students and faculty have suggested to the university that instead of having two weeks of school after Thanksgiving break and before Christmas break, school should start two weeks earlier and Thanksgiving week should be the first week of Christmas vacation. This would not only allow students to save money on plane tickets and allow more students to be home for Thanksgiving, it would also severely reduce our carbon footprint as an institution. Having students leave campus two weeks earlier means that the electricity to all of the dorms could be shut off 3 weeks earlier. It would also save the carbon from all the students who will travel home twice in such a short amount of time. 


Hopefully Santa Clara will consider making the changes that other universities have so that we can start school a little earlier and end the quarter before Thanksgiving.