College is many things, a time to discover what you actually want to do with your life, a time to figure out who you really are, a time to make new friends, a time to have new experiences, and finally, a time to procrastinate.
You see, us college students are experts at finding new ways to procrastinate. I don't know if it's like this for anyone else, but every time I have a test to study for, a computer program due, or an essay to write, it becomes crucial that my bookcase become perfectly organized, every surface in my apartment become spotless, and that my junk e-mail folder be empty. Now I know you're probably thinking, "But that's good, those are things that you should be doing anyway." and yes, you're very right, but these things seem to take on a new sense of urgency the night before an exam.
This exact thing happened just the other night, let me give you a little bit of background. I changed majors from Creative Writing to Information Technology right before the start of last semester, so I'm still learning the whole computer programming thing. So I was taking this class that was supposed to be a follow-up to the programming class I took last semester. I was unaware that the professor I'd signed up for has quite the reputation of being extremely difficult, and in the words of one of his colleagues "not very good at explaining things in a way that people actually know what he's talking about". One day I"ll learn to check rate my professor BEFORE registering for classes. Anyway, he assigned us a program to write full of things that I've never even heard of, and apparently neither had the authors of the textbook because it was no help whatsoever. So I'd been working on this program off and on for about a week (and by "working on" I mean I'd get out the instructions, open the software, realize I had no clue what I was doing, put everything away and go play XBox), but eventually the time came that I absolutely had to get it done. So here is how it went.
Tuesday Evening (roughly 8 o'clock):
Decide I've put it off long enough and it's time to get to work.
Sit down at my desk and pull out the instructions, textbook, notes, and lab manual for the assignment.
Open the software used to write the program.
Decide I need music to help me work.
Open iTunes.
Spend the next half hour building the perfect playlist which I entitled "Studying".
(It's now roughly 9 o'clock):
Decide I need a study break (even though I haven't actually done anything) and go make coffee.
Listen to my new "Studying" playlist while I drink my coffee and browse Facebook.
Convince myself that if I do not wash my now empty coffee cup at this exact moment in time, that I will surely die.
Go wash my coffee cup.
Make more coffee.
(It's now around 11 o'clock):
The song "It's Time" begins to play on my awesome new playlist and I realize that the Imagine Dragons are correct, it is time for me to stop messing around and get to work.
Take picture of song title, my coffee cup, and my computer programming binder and post to Instagram with a clever comment about how iTunes knows me so well.
Minimize Facebook and go back to the programming software.
Think to myself that I should really start working out again.
Get on the Campus Rec website to see what their hours are.
See they close at midnight so decide there's no use walking over there to only get to work out for about half an hour.
Decide to plan a workout routine for when I do start working out again.
Browse the internet for the best ab workouts.
(It's now midnight):
Finally start writing the program.
Program won't compile so I begin to use the all-knowing powers of the Google to find out what I'm doing wrong.
Find an answer, but still don't understand why it won't work.
(At about 12:30 panic sets in):
Realize that this program is due in 10 hours and I've barely gotten started.
Remember that there's a whole list of other things that have to be completed and turned in with the printout of the program.
Look at this list of things and realize I don't know how to do any of it.
Decide to look and see if this class is offered over the summer.
Discover that it is offered during the summer.
Sign into mySFA and drop the class.
Play Call of Duty Ghosts until 3 AM.
Go to bed.
Ok, probably not the best example since I think the purpose of this post was to prove that I thrive under the immense pressures that occur when things are put off to the last minute, but it was the most recent example I could think of. However, most of my best work has occurred when I'm under the gun and have to get it done at the last minute.
I used to try and not procrastinate, but the older I've gotten, the less I fight it. Because no matter what any of the studies say, it works for me. I've never not turned in a homework assignment or completely bombed an exam (except in math, but that doesn't count because...well, because it's math).
I feel like I should come up with some kind of catchy closing for these things, but right now I got nothin'. I'll brainstorm some ideas when I should be studying for my Internet Technologies test which I have to take tomorrow ;-)
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