Breakdown Of A University Deadline

Sleepless nights, way too much alcohol to help the concept of work, and filled up hard drives means only one thing. Yep a university deadline!

January isn’t just a bit of a crap month because the weather is miserable, everyone is skint from the amount the spent on Christmas presents in December, and people are doing dry January so are just gasping for a glass of wine. No, no, no. You see for us university students it gets a whole lot worse. January is also means a university deadline or exams. So basically it is a bit of a reality check or slap in the face.

You spend the whole of the Christmas break with family and friends, drinking and eating until you weigh triple your pre-christmas weight and then after NYE you are faced with the fact in a week or two’s time your work for semester one is due in. When January rolls around, even though we are at the end of the first semester, and we are officially half way through the university year, we actually have to do some work. Who’d have thought it, eh? 

I can’t speak for every single university student in the country, because every course is different. But this January I had a big module due in. It was also double the credits, it was double the work. Yes, I only had one deadline. I know some people might have three or four. And some people might have the dread exams. Sends a shiver down my spine even thinking about them. *Thank GOD* I picked a course that didn’t have any exams in in – wise choice there Emily. But if you do have exams then exams = revise. Revise = complete and utter boredom. 

And lets be honest. Over Christmas, trying to even contemplate doing any uni work is just a chore. We know we have to do it but the classic ‘Ahh, well I am on holiday’ line comes out and then we push it back so far. Until you realise you have two weeks to do absolutely EVERYTHING. Yeah, no thank you. 

One thing I have noticed from being at university is that you have two types of people. One who will get the uni work done weeks, if not months before the deadline and then are sat there chilling out before the deadline. And one who leaves it all until the last two weeks, or week if we are being honest and pull all nighters and survive on coffee for that week just to be able to hand their work in on time. Come on? True right. So whether we are giving ourselves coffee and lack of sleep induced heart attacks. Or panicking because we have seemed to have finished really early there is still a hefty amount of work due in. 

I know a lot of people will role their eyes at me and go ‘I hate that kind of person’. But I do get all my uni work down a fair amount of time before my deadline. In fact, I am a bit like that across everything I do. I guess it stems from the fact I have quite a busy schedule with my blog, uni work, my job and my internship, so the only way I can physically get stuff done is to stay on top of it at the time. But as a self confessed perfectionist I would drive myself mad if I left it all to last minute. And the truth is, I just prefer to get it all done. Then I have time to chill, rather than to have to work under pressure.

I know that science suggests that working under pressure and when you have a deadline within 5 days actually suggests a level of self confidence. Or that those who are ‘top performers’ can be oppressed for being always on top of their work as they set a high standard but leaving it until last minute can also lead to a substantial amount of anxiety.  But it is very much each to their own and how everyone performs the best.

However every university student can account for falling into the trap of procrastination. I don’t know why but Netflix seems to drop all the good new series around this time. It means we have to battle between doing work or making sure we can watch the new series before spoilers are leaked on Twitter. For example, we have had You, Sex Education, Cheer and more that have come out. AND WINTER LOVE ISLAND. Why do this to us?? 

Then, once you have sort of battled with procrastination, and actually done your work there is the whole issue of printing. My course is a creative course so there is a mix of online and physical hand ins. This deadline we had, included a physical magazine. Ref the text above, being a perfectionist I always pay extra to have mine printed to make it look all fancy. However to do this, I have to get it done a week before. Just so there is time to print and make sure it looks presentable. I mean £67 on printing it better look damn good. But when we print at uni you can almost guarantee you have that panic of getting to the printers and then not actually having any credit on your account. THE PAIN. 

But after all that. After all the coffee, glasses of wine, blood, sweat and tears (literally) it all falls down to one day. We have to physically present our whole modules once we have finished. And I can tell you now, it is very much a jelly leg, sweaty palm situation. You have to stand up in front of your lectures and course mates to show what you have spent the last few months (or weeks if you did it last minute) on. The pressure is REAL. 

But then its done. Well…. Until the next one. 

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