As all college students know the weeks before the end of the first semester of college means a countdown until they get a month off from school for some nice “well deserved” R&R (rest and relaxation). This also means classes are winding down, as good as that sounds, it also means its about time to start doing all the work you have to do for all of your classes in addition to all the final projects you have been assigned and start studying for those finals; and if you are like the average college student, that is a lot of work because everyone knows you kept pushing off doing the work because of how much “time” you have. Now as finals and deadlines become a reality and your stress levels become higher than ever, you find it the perfect time to explore any means of finding a distraction to escape this horrific reality. Even as the average student has already spent hours upon hours of doing unproductive things during the semester, they unknowingly start to actually look for ways to derail themselves from being productive and getting their work done. We stay in our rooms, telling ourselves that we are going to do our work, and that we have to. Most students do just that, stay in their room, but as to getting work done… that is a different challenge.
I have personally seen people go to their friends’ dorm rooms to ask if they want to play video games. It is usually greeted with the same answer, or something like, “I have so much work to do… ahhh whatever I’ll do it later,” or an immediate “Yes!” Students will spend half their day playing video games with their friends and then start complaining later on about how much work they still have to do. My personal favorite is going on to Facebook and reading the countless status updates about finals or having to do an unprecedented about of work. It is actually fascinating how the topic of finals can actually be a full-fledged conversation that every college student can relate to. Usually these conversations consist of comparing ‘who has more to do’ so you can hopefully gain the pity and sympathy of your friends. What does that sympathy get you really? My answer: a little stress relief, believe it or not, knowing that there are others that feeling just as crappy as you do knowing how much work you have yet to do.
What is it really that makes students want to find sources of distractions during this crucial time? Is it a means of doing something that you know will be relaxing at the time? Understanding if the distractions are watching videos, movies, talking with friends, or anything that takes your mind off of doing your work… but playing video games with friends is an odd one. Yes, it is fun to play video games and share time with your friends, but if it is a competitive game, it adds more unneeded stress to your already stressed person. I have seen people get angry after losing a game to their friend, but how do they expect that “quick break” from their work to help them refocus on the remaining work that has yet to be done. Regardless of that, the question still stands as to why students actually exert energy to find things to do other than what actually needs to be done? Taking these breaks and delaying the inevitable just adds more stress in the end when you are finally forced to do the work. At this point any student can hear their parents’ voice ringing in their head saying, “Get your work done early so you won’t have more work later!” or the famous “Don’t procrastinate!” Yet we still ignore those heeds of warning, thinking to ourselves that we have waited until the last minute in the past and everything worked out in the end, meanwhile we know that if we spread out our work and get it done in a reasonable time that we will feel a lot better in the end, but we don’t.
We all slack off to escape the impending reality because it just easier to do that than do the work we are faced with. I can not pinpoint the exact reason as to what makes students tend to slack off more during this time even when they know they will have a whole month to do as they please once they finish their work. I can just think that we as students do not like the challenge knowing how much is riding on these last crucial assignments. In the end we do indeed complete all of our assignments, but not in the most graceful manner.
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