Deadlines Have This Amazing Effect

Deadlines

It’s quite amazing the effect deadlines have on students. I am pretty sure STACS (this is the helpdesk in the Zepler Computer labs) can attest to the increased traffic both on the computer networks and in human movement during coursework/project deadlines. The effect could even be more striking or significant (or even hilarious depending on how you look at it) when different modules for some strange reasons happen to have coinciding deadlines.

Usually, the effect is that you probably walk into the Zepler computer labs and even after scouting around for a free computer for a considerable amount of time, you still might be unable to find one.

Striking as it might sound though, it just seems that we love deadlines. Or how else can one explain the fact that most times, even for courseworks that won’t take more than 4-5 hours to solve, one still ends up not planning to hand in until the last day it is due?

I have indeed found myself in this position a number of times as if extra marks are awarded for not handing coursework much earlier than the deadline. There are times when I have done coursework in my notes more than a week before the due date only to wait till the hand-in day to copy it out neatly on clean sheets of paper, print out the Hand-in receipt and then maybe handing in hours or even minutes before the deadline!

Oh yes, go on and lecture me about time management, planning, multi-tasking et al. In the end, it just seems we love the excitement and anxiety that accompanies cousework submission at the nick of time. Oh yes, and we also probably enjoy having to queue (actually gather) up at the Fairfield printer (when there are a number of other printers lying idle!), then having to search for our print-out from a stack of so many others, maybe end up not finding it and then having to go repeat the process…while time is fast running out!

The conclusion is obvious…we love deadlines!