Anytime we can get an excuse off from school, classes, or any type of work school related, we’ll take it. That includes cancelled classes, school being shut down, but most importantly holidays. Every student looks forward to Holidays, no matter which one it is, just because we feel it should be an automatic day off. Regardless the holiday and regardless the significance of the holiday. Columbus Day is one of those holidays.

Students look to get Columbus Day off because we’re looking for a day off in general and because other than the major holidays we celebrate it seems to be a pretty important one. That’s the day Columbus discovered America. Even though it wasn’t North America that he discovered, it’s an amazing discovery nonetheless and we should honor that, as we’ve always done. The interesting thing is that Pace has become more open-minded about holidays and has given us some religion based holidays, out of respect of the culture and spiritual faith of its students.

Diwali is the Hindu Festival of Lights and will be celebrated on the nineteenth of October this year. This is one of those religious holidays the University is being open-minded about. “I don’t know what Diwali is but I know we’re off that day,” says Marc Arboleda, a sophomore at Pace. Marc is just one of multiple people I asked about their knowledge on Diwali. I talked with senior Brian Gresalfi, and sophomore Isaiah Williams, and they both gave me the same answer. They didn’t know what it was nor the significance behind it. Now I’m not saying that Diwali is an unpopular holiday and most people don’t know what its significant for that we shouldn’t celebrate it. In fact, I’m saying the exact opposite. I’m saying let’s have Diwali off and while we’re at it, let’s have Columbus Day off too. We know what the holiday is and we know why it’s a holiday.

Other private institutions in our area, Manhattanville College being one of them, have given their students off to celebrate Columbus Day. Pace is a private institution as well and I don’t see why we can’t abide by the same idea.

Being that we start school so late, it has an impact on how many days we get off. Columbus Day seems to be one of those that was sacrificed. That is another problem as well. Starting school in September is great until we realize that the semester is over a couple of days before Christmas, and other schools are done by the second week in December. A lot of changes have the potential to be made in the school calendar, but that’ll be for another article.