Procrastination Is The New Stress
By Emily Yetter

If you ask a college student what they like best about school, the majority of the time their response will deal with the social scene and the parties they have attended. You might get the “my classes are pretty cool” or “ I really dislike this one professor” response, but most of the time it will be about the partying and not the academics. To actually engage in a conversation about how classes are; one would have to specify the ‘academics’ aspect, not the social part. I’m not implying that every student is like this but there are a fair amount that care much more about what party they will be going to next than what will happen in their next class.

Students who are more interested in partying rather than doing their schoolwork can run into the evil situation of procrastination. Procrastination is when someone constantly puts off something that they know has to get done at some point. I feel that procrastination is the reason why most college kids are stressed out. There will always be that paper that you know you should have done when it was first assigned but instead you waited until the last possible second because things you would rather be doing kept occurring. It happens to everyone. You are carefree about having to do the paper because you know that eventually it will be written even though you might have to stay up the entire night to turn it in on time.

When you procrastinate, you are not giving yourself a lot of time to think about the topic and write several drafts before you turn it in. Procrastination does not allow you to turn in your best work, because there is no longer time to do your best work, but just mediocre work that you are happy to be done with. The stress that students experience in college will be cramped and excessive stress for a short amount of time before once again the student is carefree and back on the path of procrastination.

Procrastination to stress is an ongoing cycle. It will always become excessive when it is time to write the big paper, but then flex back out when the cramming is over. Irritability, fear or anxiety and feeling overwhelmed are just a few of the emotional symptoms that occur when stressed. These are all a result and feeling of procrastination as well.

It is my understanding that college should be a fun time where you socialize and party all the time, but there has to be a balance of school and fun. Most college students will learn this after the first semester when they wait until the last minute and become very stressed. Playing catch up on every assignment will not lead you to a healthy college experience, but a very stressed out one. It is about finding a balance in social activities and schoolwork to manage your time effectively.