By Laura Grimm

grimmla@mnstate.edu

There’s a joke that college students can only pick two out of three: sleep, a social life or good grades.

During the past two weeks, that joke hit a little too close to home. That’s because two of the three options were amped up: a social life and good grades.

The first week of October was homecoming, with at least one event held every day. This included a hypnotist, glow run and pep rally. Although most of these events take only a little time, others require hours of free time, which many students lacked at the time.

Why? Well, school.

Midterm was technically Oct. 6, the Friday of homecoming. Because of this, many students had exams or projects due the week of and the week after homecoming.

It’s easy to sacrifice hanging out with friends when you can do that anytime, but it’s hard to sacrifice going to events that happen only once a year.

This led to a very stressful two weeks, especially for upper-classmen, who typically have more frequent and more demanding tests and projects during this time than freshmen. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why every homecoming event seems to be swarmed with freshmen.

No matter the student’s year, though, there are social stigmas attached to neglecting your social life. If you don’t go to homecoming events, you’re boring, but if you don’t study for midterms, you’re screwed.

However, there is a simple solution to this.

Midterm obviously can’t be moved—it is literally the middle of the semester. The way professors develop class schedules and lesson plans means exams and projects naturally fall during this mid-semester period. And since this is a university, the priority should be on academics.

But homecoming can be moved.

Homecoming is traditionally held anytime from late September to early October, meaning there are at least four weeks it can be held. But again, this is only tradition, and it can be held virtually whenever during fall semester.

Last year, homecoming was held the same week, but it was scheduled for the middle of October the year before. In 2014, it was the last week of September.

There is no set tradition of having MSUM’s homecoming the same week every year, so it’s completely in our power to move it away from midterms.

Of course, there are probably reasons why homecoming was held around midterm. Whatever those reasons were, though, they did not appear to have the students’ best interests in mind.

So if next year’s homecoming dates haven’t been decided yet, please check the academic calendar before making decisions. We’d all appreciate it.