Students Offer Opinions on PSU Wellness Days

Story posted February 16, 2021 in CommRadio, News by DJ Morrissey

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Last Tuesday, there were no classes here at Penn State as students received the first of three wellness days for the semester.

In an effort to reduce travel and combat COVID-19, the university opted not to give students a spring break. Instead, three wellness days will be scattered throughout the spring semester.

While students like junior liberal arts major Ed Kruger might typically head down to Daytona Beach or the Yucatan Peninsula for spring break, last week’s wellness day was a bit more mundane.

“On the wellness day, most people seemed to just chill or get some work done,” Kruger said.

As Kruger mentioned, many students planned to use this day-off to catch up on some school work. However, at this point in the pandemic, being motivated isn’t the easiest thing.

“I kind of felt the need not to do anything,” Julia Mewha said. “So I didn’t do anything, and it just made me more stressed for the week ahead.”

Mewha, a junior in the College of Biobehavioral Health, is onto something here. An unproductive day in the middle of the week could actually be a bad thing for students’ mental state.

Getting a day off can be an incredible relief. Yet, as Smeal graduate student Ritika Bafna points out, when that day off is sandwiched between an onslaught of assignments, it’s not much of an off day at all.

“We don’t get homework, but we do have homework due by the end of the week,” Bafna said, “We just end up using [wellness days] to catch up on work.”

Penn State’s final two wellness days will be on Thursday, March 7 and Wednesday, April 7.

More information can be found at wellnessdays.psu.edu.

 

DJ Morrissey is a senior majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email him at djmorrissey21@gmail.com.

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DJ Morrissey

Senior / Broadcast Journalism

Daniel “DJ” Morrissey is a senior from Cresskill, New Jersey majoring in broadcast journalism at Penn State. He is a reporter and political analyst for CommRadio’s news department. Also, he has been a member of the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism since Spring 2020. You can contact him at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).