The Art Instiute of Las Vegas Review: Holidays - The Little Vacations

Today is October 13th, 2014.  Most of the country is celebrating the Federal holiday of Columbus Day.  Others are celebrating Native American Day among other holidays.  In Nevada, however, we have Nevada Day.  For The Art Institute of Las Vegas, this means students and staff do not receive today as a free day, but Nevada Day on October 31st.

I have had a class on a holiday in most quarters.  This means there were days I didn't have class.  From what I understood, we would have extra work or lecture to make up for the class time we miss because of holidays.

 

Nope.

Every single holiday that resulted in missing a class was like that class never happened.  Never had I ever had extra homework because of a holiday, nor had work or lecture time truly doubled up because of a holiday.

I was probably wrong in not saying anything to the school about it.  At first, it was cool because I was a new student and I just moved to Vegas.  I didn't see a point in raising a ruckus if it was just a one or two time event.  After a few quarters, I started wondering why the instructors were just letting it slide by.  Not too long after, I was excited about having a class on a holiday because that meant I didn't have to waste my time at that school.

 

 

(In the center, it should say "*Holidays Excluded from Curriculum")

 

The Art Institute of Las Vegas also observes and releases school for Thanksgiving.  That means in the Fall Quarters there were two Fridays off - Thanksgiving and Nevada Day.  The solution the school had was to add an extra thirty minutes to every class on Friday.  I'm sure you can see how that doesn't really solve anything.  When I had a Fall Friday class, my instructor arrived late every class because he had his job that didn't let him go until an hour before class started.  He couldn't possibly make it on time driving across town during rush hour.
 

Now, the school is taking off Veteran's Day instead of Nevada Day.  I guess they decided to treat the only guaranteed payday for them a little better.  At least this gives the school just one Friday off, and it only took them over a decade to resolve their two-Fridays off issue.

From what I see, it is big money for AILV, so I guess it makes sense for them.

A possible solution would be to have each syllabi approved by the Academic Directors on the school's site.  There have been times when syllabi weren't even updated to the quarter.  Sometimes instructors would blame technology for the "incorrect" syllabus on the website.
 

Ultimately, the quarters that I had classes on holidays felt just a little more productive because I wasn't wasting time at the school.  Is that how I was suppose to feel and what I was suppose to be excited for?



List of all the posts I have about my experiences at AILV