Julianna Keiter

Contributing Writer

With the end of the semester growing nearer every day, so are due dates. But with the long break, surely, the students of ESU will use the free time to keep up, right?

The urge for procrastination affects a very large population of ESU students, and long breaks like Thanksgiving are no exception.

Most students don’t even notice it creeping up on them. Molly Smith, a sophomore majoring in accounting, comments on being a regular victim of procrastination.

“I’ve probably had the same experience as most people but, I always have an assignment due after break and it’s assigned before break, so I decided I’ll do it during the break, and that never happens. I always end up doing the assignment the day before it’s due, without fail. If there is one thing you can count on me for, without a single doubt, I will procrastinate my schoolwork.”

This method of getting work done can have harsh consequences for a person. For Smith, it meant ending up physically ill:

“I left 12 assignments to do the day of the due date, and they progressively went down in grades. It took me like 10 hours and then I got sick from it.”

While procrastination may not end up in sickness for everyone, Ian Keiter, a junior Spanish major, felt panicked his freshman year over a large project due.

“One time, I think my first year, I took a pretty difficult literature course, and, over spring break, we had to do a long project. It was a team project, and neither of us really did a lot of work until the last two days of spring break. We originally thought it was just a PowerPoint and a presentation, and we didn’t realize how much we had to cover PowerPoint, so we were kind of crushed right until the end.”

Procrastination impacts everybody, including professors. While professors are human and can procrastinate, they are usually on the receiving end of work that has been turned in the very last minute.

Professor Wyler, who has been teaching math at ESU since 2005, recommended, “…to work on it a little bit as often as possible and not save it for later. They’ve shown in math classes especially, if you work on it within a few hours of leaving the class. Just start it, you don’t have to finish your homework then, but if you start it, then you do better overall.”

When asked if she experienced any procrastination over breaks in college, she explained she didn’t have time to procrastinate because she was working.

“I didn’t really have a chance because I was working and a lot of people find that if they have another thing they do, like for work, or anything else that takes up your time, you budget your time better and work on it sooner.”

Creating healthy habits to avoid the looming urge to procrastinate may help avoid difficult situations. While procrastination isn’t a killing habit, it is definitely a dirty, stressful one.