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How Summer Reading Programs Can Keep Students on Track

As many college students know firsthand, the academic year at American universities is less straightforward than it may initially seem. It is organized by semesters that do not, as their name implies, cover exactly half of the year. Instead, there are breaks in midwinter and in the spring that are one or more weeks in length. For many students, there is an even longer vacation in the middle of the calendar year — the summer.

Whatever the origin of this pattern, it is not an accurate reflection of how the post-college world functions. Beyond setting unrealistic expectations about vacation time (which is far shorter in the workplace), summer break can actually have a harmful effect on college students. How? In short, hard-won academic skills atrophy in a three-month stew of sleeping in until noon and watching endless movies and television episodes. Even for those students who are able to participate in an academic extracurricular (i.e. a shadowing experience), the summer can prompt a fall-off in their engagement with higher-level thinking.

When faced with this dilemma, some individuals point to the success of summer reading programs. A summer reading program can be an excellent way to utilize academic skills while still taking a break from regular coursework. Many colleges and universities now offer guided programs or book lists for their students. Even if a particular school does not, institutions like the University of Notre Dame, Harvard University, and the University of California, Berkeley publish their lists of suggested books. The University of Notre Dame also includes films as a form of storytelling.