They say you shouldn’t put off for tomorrow what you could do today. Anyone can complete a research paper in a matter of weeks or days even, but it takes skill and determination to lose track of time, bang your head against a wall and then still manage to crank out five or more pages in a matter of hours to submit an essay without proofreading it.
Time management is a thing of the past, no offense to those who dedicate a few solid hours to filling in their planners, projecting a timeline of when they will begin and finish their work.
But honestly, there is nothing like the proud feeling and sense of self-worth that comes with a grade on an assignment that was put off until the last minute and is not an absolute failure.
Anything but failure – that’s the goal.
Today’s students are more comfortable with mediocrity than in past years. Perfect scores are not the standard like they used to be. Now, passing scores are. Students aim to produce the absolute minimum in order to guarantee that they pass and can move on to the next phase of their academic or professional lives, regardless of their quality of work.
Students develop a pattern. In other words, what is learned to be acceptable in middle school becomes the norm in high school; what is solidified as a norm in high school, comes to be the expectation in higher education.
Sadly, this lowering standard of work ethic is then reflected in the professional world.
The real tragedy of this cycle is that adapting to a pattern is such a basic tendency that the adults overseeing the students adapt right alongside them.
In other words, expectations of teachers and professors diminish in proportion to the quality of production by the students.
There is no exact formula here, but it’s safe to say that when expectations decrease to match an increase in mediocrity and sloppiness, production value takes a dive as a result.
But, let’s not forget the outliers in this pattern – meaning, consider those students who continue to aim for excellence, regardless of the example set by their peers and instructors.
These students undoubtedly partake in some serious procrastination. The difference is, their quality of work does not reflect the poor planning put into their process.
Who’s to say that working at the last minute is, in fact, a problem, if standards of achievement are not compromised? In fact, working in a time-crunch, self-induced or otherwise, but continuing to produce quality work is a highly valued skill, especially in the work place where one might be paid for working efficiently.
Bottom line, don’t put off for tomorrow what you could do today, unless you know what you do tomorrow is going to be better than everyone else’s no matter when you do it.
Paige Pelonis is a sophomore journalism and international studies major and the assistant opinions editor for the Daily 49er.