For some, distractions during the recess prevent them from getting work done.
"It's not like someone can do lots of work over Christmas," Leverett House resident Carie Chan '97 says. "It's vacation, right?"
For their part, most faculty members say they'll take a short respite. But then it's back to work.
"I'll be visiting some family for a short time, then be back here for Christmas week," says North House Hastings says many Harvard scientists take advantage of their students' absence to get their own work done. "Frequently, a lot of research does go on [over the holiday]," he says. Assistant Professor of Computer Science Margo I. Seltzer '83 says she would be busy "working" over the vacation. Seltzer says she will be doing research and preparing for next semester's course, in addition to writing the Computer Science 50 final. Although students have pressed to move exams to December in recent years, Seltzer says there are both benefits and drawbacks to changing the calendar. "I don't think it's an easy or clear decision," she says. "It would certainly be nice to give students a longer intercession, which completing courses before Christmas would do." Evans, in fact, differs from most faculty in his support for calendar reform. "I'd love that....I don't know who is perpetrating [the current system]," Evans says. "I guess it's just tradition." While most students will be busy over the vacation, a lucky few will simply lack back and relax. Shawn D. Dehart '95, a Mather House resident in the Undergraduate Teacher Education Program, has no exams or papers to worry about this year. "I'm loving it," Dehart says. "I'm going to be rubbing it in the faces of all my roommates." Tulsky won't have that luxury. But he notes that despite the lengthy Organic Chem problem set, the course's teaching staff hasn't lost its sense of humor. "The last question [on the problem set] was, "How can you kill the Chem 30 lab TF using organic chemistry? Answers will be graded on originality and creativity,'" Tulsky says