Lately, talks about we are having too many holidays in Malaysia are re-surfing. Well, these talks have been there forever, but since I just came back after years of living away, I think the issue of ‘having too much holidays’ is just too funny. My first reaction upon re-hearing this is snicker. Yes, I snickered, that annoying little laugh came out of your mouth when you least expect it, finally. I can tackle this subject on many levels, from each invested party, from school-age children, to working people, and since I am an undergraduate student, I'll go from there.
First of all, there is a saying that having too many breaks lessen productivity. And in university undergraduate study-wise, that means, less learning. That deserves another snicker. Since when does more time correlate directly to increasing productivity? I’ll bet my whole month allowance (since I’m a perpetual student and I have yet the right to say ‘my monthly paycheck’) that it’s either there are many contrasting study results (if there are even studies on this) or there is no study at all that can prove this. You see, productivity depends on many things, and yes, time has a role in it. And time’s role is called ‘optimum’. That translates to the best amount of time to produce the best result. That’s it. Not too short, duration-wise, or you could never finish your job or not too long or you’ll just get plain bored out of your mind and start to amuse yourself in the silliest ways that actually decrease production. An example is wasting time. Another is government workers who have too much time in their hands that they become too lazy and inefficient. And in undergraduate language, that means ‘ponteng’ (cutting) class or not paying attention since you are in school (yes, it's school, I don't care if people say it's university since it's the way I say it. Deal with it) day in and day out, minimum 8 hours daily.
Case point 1, in most Western countries with 4 seasons, students will be given a summer break that ranges from one month to 3 months and a half. Yes, almost 4 months. That is a continuous break, which means 3 months and a half of heaven of doing nothing productive, if one wants to do so. I've experienced this for 5 years and believe me, study-wise, I don’t see the difference in studying 11 months a year than 8 months per year. Yes, again, 8 months. I’m not kidding you. Let me recap my old yearly schedule. Mid-November to early March, summer holiday. Mid-June to mid-July, about 3 to 4 weeks of semester break. Add that to another week break for inter-semester holiday, which means another 2 weeks break. A few random holidays like Queen’s Birthday, Anzac Day and so on, which if I’m not mistaken count to another week. That’s about 4 to 5 months worth of break. And about 7 to 8 months of unadulterated classes.
Does that means that the students in these universities are lacking in education and information since they have so much holiday and less classes? I don't think so since a lot of family here are so eager to send our children overseas to study and a lot of companies find overseas graduate to be efficient in their work. So, what's the issue here? I think most don't realise that we have sufficient holidays. University schedule-wise (I've been dropping 'wise' left and right today hohoho), we have a good one, from what I've experienced so far. In average, I'll be having about 2 months of holiday annually. Which is less than what I was used to but it's fine, nonetheless. That duration is sufficient to relax and recharge. So, stop the grumbling and do your work. I bet if you manage your time and resources wisely, things can go well despite all the holidays we have.
P/S: I know working population has a totally different set of holidays so I'm not mentioning that because, well, I know more about undergraduate level than any others. Obviously.
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