It’s no secret that when students go off to college, most of them are not necessarily focused solely on academic success in the next level of education. For the majority, it’s about enjoying the time in school while making it through their course curriculum with a halfway decent grade point average.
It seems like students in the college age bracket are the best at making excuses. Not necessarily dishonest excuses as to why they showed up late or why they could not work that day, but more innocent excuses, such as why they cannot study or do their homework. These excuses are the kinds of excuses that college students make to themselves that justify the procrastination of schoolwork.
So just what are the things that prevent the potentially good student from actually doing what he or she came to UT to do?
The answer is not simple. There are many detractors that take away from the enriched academic experience in college.
For example, some students find themselves in a pickle of a week with numerous exams, papers or projects to take care of all at the same time. All of a sudden, it becomes apparent that the apartment is a mess. Nobody can study in a messy room, right?
The bedroom is littered in clothing, the kitchen looks uncomfortably unsanitary, and the living room has not gotten vacuumed in a month. Instead of cracking open the math book to work on those practice problems, cleaning becomes priority number one. Once the clothes are picked up, they need to be laundered. Once the kitchen is clean, dinner needs to be started. Once the floor is vacuumed, the tables need to be dusted, as well.
So finally, once the apartment is sparkling spotless and the clothes are washed, dried, folded and put away, dinner is ready — a big chicken breast with some pasta dumped over it, a real treat. “Project Runway” or Thursday night college football does not end until 10 p.m. or later. Dinner stretches over another 30 minutes to catch the “Runway” finale or the tight fourth quarter, while savoring that great meal.
When all is said and done, the student has lost valuable time that he or she could have devoted to studying and focusing on what college students are supposed to direct their focus on.
Another detractor all college students can relate to is the most readily accessible one: Facebook. It’s so easy to click away from a mid-term paper and stalk the attractive people one finds while browsing other people’s pictures. Maybe the status can change during the login session from “… is cleaning the apartment” to “… is blanking on his paper.” Let the world know what’s going on.
On top of the status change, there are always notifications galore and so many to respond to. Telling Joe that his party was dank or Jane that her friend was cute takes precedence over that blank Microsoft Word document glaring back in the tab below.
Facebook can become more important than contemplating the impact of feminist writers in the Romantic period with the click of a button and subtract an hour’s worth of time from real priorities. With so much creeping to do online, it’s nearly impossible for social-hungry college students to get the edge in most classes.
The social craving does not end with online networking and interaction. Perhaps the most obvious and effective detractor is the lure of the party: Drinking one’s pants off with fellow college students during the week and as a result, destroying any chance at a productive day after the raging has ended. Nausea and headaches are not good complements to a good dose of reading in any course, and such symptoms of a nasty hangover do not help one focus on material while in class either.
But who can resist the opportunity? With parents far, far away and booze so easily accessible to those underage, it just makes sense to capitalize on the chance to get faded with fellow scholars of the Torch, rather than fade into sleep with that statistics book and z-scores.
College kids never seem to fade completely back into reality and realize they need to do their work and make the grades. Procrastination always seems to get the better of young men and women on campus, giving students silly justifications for avoiding what needs to be done.
As the future of America, young intellectuals must unite against the legions of procrastination and engage in the true, enlightened academic experience that really defines what higher education should be.
But then again, procrastination really defines college students. That is an excuse in itself.
— Oliver Casey is a junior in enterprise management. He can be reached at [email protected].
