Are Later Study Hours Negatively Affecting Student Mental Health?

This year’s new schedule is the single greatest change to Middlesex daily life in recent history. Among its numerous improvements to the flow of the day, students and faculty enjoy a later start to the class day and less nightly homework on average. Additionally, in the evenings a later start to study hours (moving from a previous start of 7:30 to now 8:00), gives clubs, teams, and friends more time to organize and schedule. However, this change to study hours has frustrated some boarding students.

While lights out for freshmen and associated rules for other grades remain at 10:30, late check-in has been moved to 10:15 in a recent update. Early check-in is now 8:00. The change in study hours maintains the amount of free time between the academic day and study hours, considering that the academic day now ends later, but some senior leaders argue this shift has led to unintended consequences towards dorm life and health.

Senior boarding procters, Luke Taylor, George Leness, and Luke Power argue that the new “the new study hours is keeping kids up later,” and overall hurting dorm life. Last year, with an hour of flexibility between study hours ending at 9:30 and 10:30 lights out or in your rooms for underclassmen, gave students time to finish their homework, socialize and relax in the dorm, and get ready for bed before 10:30. The new schedule forces students to scramble to finish homework, shower, and get to bed when students should instead be winding down for the night, ending their day among friends. When students had the time to get to bed at 10:30, they mostly did, but with the current system students are “pushing their clock back half an hour,” and overall going to bed later, perhaps undermining the whole point of class starting later. The dorms after study hours “are louder at a later time,” Taylor says. With the demand for socialization and wind down time before bed the same, but the current rules making that socialization more difficult, students are more likely to break dorm rules and challenge proctors and dorm parents more so than in the past, according to the seniors.

At the crux of students’ issues with the new study hours is that 10:30 cannot work as a rule if students are not given enough downtime between study hours and lights out. Significantly, if students continually break dorm rules, then a culture of general disregard for basic dorm rules can form - an obvious danger to student life. A healthy amount of sleep is a critical wellness objective for students who perennially struggle with balancing sleep, academics, and their social life.

George Thornton