one of my friends went to nepal for the whole semester to attend his sister's wedding. he had no problem getting the approval. fyi - assuming that you are doing a 4yrs degree program: 1. u can take one semester break if it's a valid reason 2. u can do Course Load Reduction for one semester if u r having hard time paying ur tuition or some other reasons. 3. u can take less than a full course (even just one class) on the very last semester of your school.