For the sake of student mental health and well-being, college assignments should only be due on weekdays
By Ellie Noh — eenoh@ucdavis.edu
“Assignment due Saturday at 11:59 p.m.”
This is what some students might see on Canvas after anticipating a somewhat restful weekend break. In my personal experience, I’ve had many assignments due on Sundays, week after week. While I understand why a few professors may opt to make this choice, having multiple assignments due on the weekend can be quite a daunting task for students who have a full academic workload.
With regards to higher education, I understand that the concept of being a full-time college student entails a chance for high school students to transition into the fast-paced “real world” lifestyle. However, I still continue to view weekends as a chance to achieve more balance in my life after a long week of classes and other assignments due throughout the week. If multiple looming deadlines are approaching on a weekend, it can cause a “day of relaxation” to be a day of working and finalizing assignments.
Students trying to achieve more of a balance on weekends does not necessarily entail just relaxation, either. It can also mean spending more time on extracurricular activities and developing pre-professional experiences. I have five meetings on the weekends, and this is just one example of my schedule that can hinder my ability to give a lot of my time to assignments due on the weekend. Other examples of weekend activities can be athletic meets, academic tournaments and more. Even with effective time management, there are always weekends that will have packed schedules — with commitments that are often out of our control.
Considering students’ busy schedules, a student’s academic career can almost be considered a full-time job — which traditionally only allows employees to work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays. While the workloads can differ, students should be able to treat weekends as a break from their academic stress. Additionally, some professors prefer to not respond on the weekends and frequently reiterate to students that they should not expect a response from them. In these scenarios, if there are additional questions that might arise over the weekend about an assignment due, they will likely go unanswered.
With this in mind, there does seem to be a correlation between the advancements in technology and the ability to make assignments due on the weekends. As platforms like Google Classroom and Canvas become commonly used tools for education, I can only reminisce back to the times when these platforms weren’t used as often as they are today: when assignments had to be submitted in person, with the weekdays being the only opportunity for students to do so. Prior to digital academic technologies, it wasn’t an expectation to go to school and turn in assignments on the weekend.
My perspective is not to get rid of such assignments, only to push the deadline to the start of class rather than a day prior. This can allow for more time on assignments if students have busy schedules on weekends. For instance, an assignment due Sunday at 11:59 p.m. can be moved to Monday at noon, at the start of class. This would allow for students to use more time on an assignment and finalize it with a fresh mindset, the day after Sunday, rather than spending their last day before a long week stressed about submitting it.
Having homework is a crucial part of learning and a helpful way to apply concepts learned in lecture, but it is also important to give ample time for students to plan their workload around an often strenuous and complex schedule. With this in mind, assignments should only be allowed to be due from Monday to Friday in order to allow for a more thorough completion and to improve students’ work-life balance.
Written by: Ellie Noh — eenoh@ucdavis.edu
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by individual columnists belong to the columnists alone and do not necessarily indicate the views and opinions held by The California Aggie.
