By Tyler White | Reporter

Spring break is a wonderful opportunity to rest, spend time with friends and family and step away from school for a week. Whether you went to the beach with a group or caught up on sleep at home, the last thing on your mind is school work — and that’s how it should be.

Some people are faced with the looming stress of midterms, papers or tests the week after spring break. How are we supposed to enjoy our break when we have to prepare for school?

After multiple weeks of going to class, staying on top of assignments and balancing extracurricular activities, spring break should have been a great time to take a mental break.

Exams and essays directly after spring break shouldn’t be allowed. With this comes a variety of reasons behind why exams and large assignments should be given to students or not.

There are a couple of things that could happen when exams take place right after a break. You can take time out of your break to stress and study or you take time to rest and cram the night before.

Some could argue spring break is a great opportunity to prepare for exams because there’s an abundance of time to balance studying and relaxing. While it is true there’s time to prepare well, that defeats the purpose of a “break.” Instead of resting from the grueling semester, you’re taking the break to prepare and study.

It’s best to have exams right before the break. While it certainly may be annoying or an inconvenience, it really allows students to enjoy their break more.

Even if having exams before the break might keep you on campus longer than you thought because you can’t skip that one class to leave early, it’s a much better trade in the long run. If we those stressful exams out of the way, we can all breathe and enjoy our time off.

Next year, professors should shift their exam dates to just before the break. It’s more important to take time to rest your body and mind so you can come back to campus refreshed and rejuvenated.