The finals’ week schedule this year presents a number of predicaments for students who are from far away. Having exams end just two days before Christmas forces Pomona students who must fly home to do so amidst the busyness of holiday traveling. This year that becomes an even greater problem.

Forcing students to stay at school almost until Christmas Eve complicates travel and makes it more difficult for students to spend the holidays at home with their families. Even for students who don’t celebrate Christmas (like myself) the late finishing date makes getting home much more difficult.

Personally, I am being forced to take all three of my exams within a three-day span. When they realized that I was set to fly home on December 23rd, my parents forced me to move my exams and come home early. They were afraid that terrorists would be more likely to strike right around Christmas time, and didn’t want me flying then. This means that I have to take three exams within three days, which is going to make it difficult for me to do well.

Although most people don’t object to traveling at Christmas due to the fear of terrorist attacks (however founded or unfounded my parents’ worries might be), traveling so close to the holidays is still much more of a headache than flying home in mid-December.

Some people are lucky enough to take classes which don’t have in-class finals, or whose professors move the finals to the last week of classes rather than make students stick around until the end of finals week. I have never been one of those lucky people. This year it’s even worse, as I have to petition to pack all three of my exams into a 72-hour period.

Even for those who aren’t forced to leave before they’re technically done with exams, the late date of finals’ week is a major hassle. Airports are likely to be incredibly crowded towards the end of the week, between travelers visiting family members and people vacationing for the holidays. I fondly recall some of my flights last year, when there was room to spread out and the plane was barely half-full. I know this year I will find nothing of the sort.

With all the security measures in place now, travel already takes longer than it used to. Add into that one of the busiest travel times of the year, and the delays could become even longer. On Thanksgiving, the country saw entire airports shut down due to security lapses. Christmastime could be no different.

Whereas Thanksgiving break must occur around Thanksgiving, winter break need not begin so late. The schedule could have been shifted back a week, relieving students of the difficulty of traveling at the holidays.

Even if travel does go smoothly, there are still problems with getting back so late. It leaves little time to prepare for the holidays. There’s only a day or two to buy presents for family members before Christmas. Unless of course, you have the time to shop amidst finals and end-of-the-semester goings-on. Many extended families gather together for the holidays. Coming home so late cuts into the holiday season.

One of my sponsees is even going to miss Christmas entirely in her first year at college. She’s flying home to Taiwan, and with the time change and the length of the flight, she won’t even be home until later on the 25th.

Many people buy their tickets home as part of a round-trip ticket with their flight out here. That means that you have to guess when you’re going to be done with exams. It’s better to guess too late than too early, and so many students plan to flight out at the end of the week anyway. With the crunch around holiday time this year, it’s more difficult to change flights.

Although the problems associated with flying around the holidays are even worse this year than in past years, this is something the school should have noticed when it put the schedule together. Would it have been so much worse to start the academic year a week earlier and finish well before Christmas? The late date for the finish of the semester makes going home much more difficult for those of us more than a short car ride away.