Wednesday 2 August 2017

Happy New Year

No, its not January 1st.  In academia the new year starts in the autumn - of course!  it makes so much sense to start the year at the end of it.

But, I hear you say, academics are our cleverest citizens and so there must be more to it than a simple chronology or calendar - and of course there is.

The academic year starts in September or October to allow the peasants to gather in the harvest before attending school in the less busy winter months.  For many years, however, peasants (that's most of us) didn't go to University, so that cannot be the reason why academics choose it.


Ah, I've got it...as with the "moving feast" of Easter there's a complex mechanism for establishing the start of the academic year:


So, that's all clear then.

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