This school year, we students were able to enjoy more than a week of no school due to the snow. Though snow days are necessary in order to ensure the safety of students and a good way to catch up on homework and studying, I find that to me personally, they’re more stressful than they are relaxing.

Like many other students, I tend to procrastinate at times. If a test is a week away, I won’t bother opening my textbook until a few days before the test. On the first snow day, I was determined to not waste my time and start studying for what felt like a million midterms, though there were actually only a few. I opened my laptop to start my work, but as soon as I got to the YouTube homepage to play a song, I couldn’t help but click on a video that was in my ‘suggested videos’ feed. Soon, one video turned into two, and two videos turned into an hour worth of video-watching. By that point, my motivation to work was gone, so I put off studying until the next day.

The point I’m trying to make is that snow days might give students a false sense of security. Instead of studying for a test, they rely on a snow day instead and put it off until later. Snow days also make studying difficult, as students can’t communicate freely with teachers and are restricted to email. Because of this they might not be able to ask the teacher a specific question, which might leave the student confused about a certain topic.

Despite these things, there’s no doubt that snow days allow students to relax. Instead of waking up at what feels like the crack of dawn and returning home as the daylight is fading, they can sleep in and enjoy a few more hours of sleep. With this cycle of waking up late and sleeping late for over a week, it almost felt as if summer is upon us once again.

With snow days, students also have the opportunities to take a break from school work and do activities that many Jefferson students don’t get to do on weekdays – play outside. Snow provides opportunities for many fun activities like sledding, skiing and snowman-building, giving students a chance to de-stress.

Though the snow days are a great opportunity for relaxation, it’s important to keep in mind that there is still work to be done, and that going back to school will mean diving right back into the same school routine.