LETTER: Reading days won’t be useful

Editor,

I am very concerned about pushing the agenda of reading days before finals. I am against the proposal for these following reasons:

1. It will take away a working week from summer. Having the fall semester start on the Wednesday prior to its original time will result in a week’s loss of income of students who work during the summer.

2. It removes lecture hours from an already hectic and crammed curriculum needed to be covered within the semester.

3. Most importantly, it promotes procrastination, inefficiency and laziness of the student body. By allowing for reading days before finals, it cuts into the already precious commodities of USU students’ time and money and then assumes that these lost resources will be made up for by every Aggie hitting the books before finals. Intuitively, the students who need the reading days will not use them, and those who would use them do not need them.

I have spoken this concern to Ericka Ensign, during her campaign and right after the related Statesman article printed on Jan 27. I encourage her and those making this decision of reading days to seriously consider this argument. To hold Ericka Ensign to her words in Wednesday’s article, it’s the duty as credible leaders of this university to do what is in the best interest of the students. This is to not to take away a week in summer, to not cut the already limited number of lecture hours, and to not pass the proposed reading days before finals. Simply put these reading days cannot and will not be used effectively enough to justify the trade offs of lost lecture hours, money and time.

Matt Black