Student Emails During the Summer Holiday

[pennswoods]

Swedes take their vacation time very seriously. My university quite literally shuts down for five weeks while everyone and their mother is on vacation. I am having to beg colleagues in the US to send me PDFs of research articles from their own institutions since my university library is closed, and I have to wait until August before I can put in an interlibrary loan request.  Some of my colleagues have left explicit away messages in their email indicating that they will not be checking or answering email until August 11th and for students to wait until then to contact them. People still come into the building from time to time, but all but a few of the bathrooms have been closed until mid August since the cleaning staff is on vacation!

Yesterday I received two emails from students who wanted the answer key to the resit exam they took in the beginning of June. There is no readily available answer key (I grade my portion of the exam and my colleague graded the vocabulary and pronunciation portion) for resit exams; we are not obligated to provide a key and students are encouraged to read the feedback on their exams when they pick them up (which these students didn't do); and even if I wanted to put an answer key together out of the goodness of my heart, it's the very last thing I would devote a day to during summer vacation.

You can probably imagine the great satisfaction and joy with which I deleted these emails.  

Comments

[tjs-whatnot.livejournal.com]

Awesome!

I fully support any nation that, on a whole, take their vacations that seriously. I need to find me one of those nations. STAT

[pennswoods.livejournal.com]

Vacation time is definitely one of the good things in Sweden. It trickles over into other areas too which can be a PITA, but during summer, it's awesome. And it's something the US totally lacks.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I'm all in favor of practically-mandatory vacations, too. I just don't want to be told when I can take them. So if they have five weeks of vacation now, can they take vacation time at other parts of the year as well?

The idea of five weeks of no work every summer makes me a little giddy, though.

[pennswoods.livejournal.com]

The US really gives far too little vacation. It's enraging.

5 weeks of vacation at a time can be amazingly refreshing. Just imagine all that you can do with your life in that time. I'm exercising and reading and drawing and waking up early every day because I look forward to it so much.

We can spread them out a little, but it's harder when classes are scheduled at certain times. So, for example, we don't technically have vacation during Christmas and New Year because students are required to defend their BA theses the second week of January. This means that I am getting emails and reading drafts from students during the Christmas break to help them meet this deadline. And what's even more annoying is when you have students who are super last minute and don't follow directions, so I find myself spending New Years Day reading pages and pages of nearly incomprehensible text.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

November to January is the busiest part of my year, too, since our application deadline for the graduate program is December 31. I try to take Spring Break off every year, though.

God, five weeks in a row. Honestly, I can't even imagine it.

[sofisticat.livejournal.com]

We also take our vacations that seriously. Schools, colleges, and universities are closed (Although some universities offer summer classes). Public administration is up and running, but limited, since most employees take their vacations now.
I'm back from my vacation and I'm working again. And I get more requests because a lot of translators are on vacation...

[pennswoods.livejournal.com]

YES! This sounds a lot like Sweden too.

[droxy.livejournal.com]

probably fun to AK those emails.

[pennswoods.livejournal.com]

It felt damn good!

[sugareey.livejournal.com]

There are so many pluses to that though. Vacation is actually a vacation for once. :)

[pennswoods.livejournal.com]

Yes! I am using my vacation to research and write and update my vita an catch up on reading, but that's my choice and I love having the freedom to schedule my time.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Wow, closed libraries, that's annoying! I did most of my research during holidays and therefore hated the shorter hours.

I marvel at what e-mails students will send...! Crocky's take the cake- her tenth graders once e-mailed her the day they'd written an exam and asked about their results. Good on you for deleting those e-mails.

[aprilstarchild.livejournal.com]

late comment is super late!

As someone who worked retail and medical records for so long--how the hell do people go on vacation anywhere or go grocery shopping or eat out or go to the doctor's? Do service/medical jobs (as well as other necessary jobs like keeping the electricity on) get their vacations at other times of the year or what?

(It takes fifteen years at the career position as a USPS mail carrier to get five weeks of vacation a year--but damn, I'm already looking forward to it!)