Linguistics students yearbook photo, courtesy of SMU yearbook comittee

Spring break is all or nothing for linguistics students

Spring break started on Feb. 16 at SMU and MSVU, but joint classes at Dalhousie are still going full throttle.

Spring break for most students is straightforward, but linguistics students have a tough choice.

Linguistics students don't take a spring break, or they just take two, "depends how you look at it," says Saint Mary's University Linguistics Co-ordinator and English professor Elisa Asp.

Linguistics is an inter-university program among Saint Mary's, Dalhousie and Mount Saint Vincent University. Because of how the program is set up, a substantial number of students end up taking classes at two universities at the same time, some may even find themselves travelling back and forth among the three institutions, although this is rare.  When spring break comes, that's a problem, at least for some students who wish to take some time off from their books.

Saint Mary's and Mount Saint Vincent take the break one week earlier than Dalhousie. The first two schools started it today, Feb. 16, while Dalhousie will take theirs next Monday, Feb. 23.  Linguistics society co-ordinator Natacha Thebeau says that's a problem for this group of students -- if they decide to take either break they know they will miss classes at the other university.

"It becomes a matter of either taking a well-deserved break or missing some education you pay for," she says.

Spring break is not meant for Caribbean get aways -- prof

But professor Asp doesn't see it that way. She says the break is called "reading week" which should be used for study time not to make trips to the Caribbean as many students do.  She says reading week should be a productive time because these students have a two week of reduced coarse-load instead of just one week.

"This is not high school, is university," she says.

Professor Egor Tsedryk, who teaches French phonetics at Saint Mary's, agrees with Asp but he recognizes that the different spring break schedules can pose problems.

For instance, he says there are some Dalhousie students in his SMU class right now. So when their break starts next week, the Dalhousie students can't go anywhere otherwise they will miss a test he has planned.

"The administration should work on this issue," he says, although he is quick to point out that the issue hasn't been brought up at senate meetings.

Dalhousie linguistics co-ordinator Jasmina Milicévic wasn't available for an interview before the deadline on this assignment; however through e-mail correspondence she said she didn't have an opinion on the subject because she wasn't even aware this was a problem for students enrolled in the linguistics program.  Mount Saint Vincent linguistics co-ordinator Marie-Lucie Tarpent wasn't available for comment.

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