End of year rant against due datesl

Hannah Vandenberg

I never have weekends off of work. And then, this weekend, it was magical—I had both Friday and Saturday off. I have project after project and paper after paper that I could be working on, and yet, here I am, sitting at my computer, sipping my margarita with windows open playing Cards Against Humanity with friends (sidenote: I’m 27, so margaritas are allowed), and I am NOT doing school work.
I also talked to my cousin, who is 20, and she was in the same predicament. So I’m fairly certain this
isn’t an age issue or a generation gap.

I was happy we were able the empathize with one another, and it seems to be the trend; while we all
may easily procrastinate throughout the semester, it’s wildly more easy these last few weeks of
school, with an addition of intense anxiety. Why is that? What’s frustrating to me is the mountain of
due dates and deadlines all jam-packed in the final days of school. It feels like an evil plot of
professors versus students (when secretly, the more they assign, the more they have to grade, so that
can’t be it). But if it isn’t that, an evil plot, that is, then what is with the stress? Spring is in the air, the
winter is finally lifting, the sun is making its debut in what seems to be the first time in a thousand
years, and here we are, totally sidetracked by margaritas and sunshine and not doing schoolwork. We
should vote out finals and final projects entirely. It is our most terrible work, no doubt. I will hand in
seven page papers when they’re supposed to be eight to twelve without second guessing it, whereas
back in December I would have gone four days straight without sleep before being a half page short of
the minimum. I totally don’t care. Give me that C and let me move on with my life. You don’t have to
pat my back or give me hints to success. On the other hand, you also do not have to tell me how my
thesis is entirely garbage and I have no supportive arguments. I repeat: I don’t care.

However, a piece of advice to professors: know we don’t care. Know that if your class was our nine to
five job that we would totally care and reach every single deadline you were to give us. But between
this class we hate and our general education class we will never use, and then that one magical class
that we love, I’m just being honest when I say (write) that Saturday late afternoon margaritas will
always win.

So cheers to that inevitable morning panic attack, because that due date is totally creeping up on all of
us.