cramming

The opposite of procrastination is a sad alternative, cramming.

Cramming may very well be the single most stressful aspect of college. (behind actually paying for school itself) 

The concept is simple; as stated before, simply procrastinate to the point of stupidity, then attempt to absorb all the information required in a minuscule amount of time. Normally the night before a test or due date, the student will sit down to their subject, armed with an arsenal of caffeine, all distractions put aside except for the motivating rock music that seems to do more harm than good, and they will attempt to stuff as much information into their consciousness that the rapidly approaching deadline will allow.   

What will inevitably occur is the brain, sensing it's impending doom, will panic thus decreasing it's ability to retain information by approximately 50%. When the student realizes the decreased ability, they will compensate by consuming caffeine, which increases brain activity by 125% but only increases the brain's recall by 25% bringing the ability to retain information up to 75% of normal capacity. However, this heightened ability has a half-life of three hours which coincides with the time that it takes for the body to process caffeine. At this point, only around 60% of the required information will have been studied, but the body will go into "crash and burn" mode, which forces the brain to strain to keep everything going plus the added pressure of studying which will cause a hard drive overload that leaves the student basically senseless at four o'clock in the morning.

Perhaps this is a bit exaggerated. Nevertheless, this is what it feels like.

The sad truth about cramming is that it is comparable to running on a treadmill: it’s a lot of effort, but you don’t actually accomplish anything. Cramming doesn’t work. The only tangible result is a migraine.

The only thing that is accomplished is roughly four hours of sleep, residual grogginess, and a hazy trip to their class, where the student discovers that they are wholly unprepared for their test but they have lost the ability to care; this is the time that students are satisfied with receiving a D.

 Needless to say, they earned it.



"80% of the final exam will be based on the one lecture you missed and the one book you didn’t read."

I tried to stop procrastinating, but I keep putting it off

Perhaps the number one inhibitor to getting homework done on time is procrastination.

Procrastination is a derivative of the work "procrastinate" which means "to delay or postpone action; put off doing something." 

So what is it about people that makes them put things off? Specifically, what is it about homework that makes people incapable of getting it done?

Personally, there are three reasons that the average student procrastinates homework: boredom, mis-prioritizing, and tv.

To be honest, homework is boring. Yes, I know that your biology professor tells you repeatedly of the exciting properties of the chlorophyll in algae and your history teacher loves telling stories of the Soviet Union that last longer than the Cold War itself, but truth be told, it's just boring. So when you find yourself inside on a Saturday afternoon researching the stages of mitosis and meiosis, (and sadly, this will happen) you tend to find other things that get in the way. A convenient book, a good movie, a spider crawling up the wall, paint drying, watching air particles, pretty much anything can be an instant distraction.

Another reason that students procrastinate is that they mis-prioritize. Mis-prioritizing (there's a good chance that I made up this word) is when a student has priorities, they're just not very good ones. For instance, they put the "watch tv and write about it" assignment that's due in two weeks ahead of the 3 page essay on social problems due tomorrow. This often ties into the "boredom" aspect of homework, which is a direct cause of mis-prioritizing. I myself am horrible at this.

The last reason that students procrastinate is tv. Television is the single, most destructive element that homework has to face. A stack of books with due dates attached has no chance against a full-sized, plasma, LCD flat-screen with HD and digital surround sound. Or a grainy box with rabbit ear antennas, depending on your budget.

The only thing worse than watching tv that keeps you from homework is the amazing invention of sites like hulu that have full episodes free! It's a wonder that students get any work done at all. The danger of watching tv episodes online is the simple fact that a majority of college students use their laptop both to watch them and to do homework. Guess which one gets priority, Dr. SpitsAlot's class notes on ethical dilemmas in the workplace or Dr. McDreamy's latest crisis on Grey's Anatomy?

So, I find it interesting to note that while I've been writing this, I have successfully put off no less than three different homework assignments. Most of them are boring, but I've also been watching CSI online. There are several other reasons that the average student will procrastinate, but I'll write about those later.

The two rules of procrastination: 1) Do it today. 2) Tomorrow will be today tomorrow. - Anonymous 

First things first: what am I doing?

The main question that any college student inevitably asks, especially within the first few days of class, is "What on earth am I doing here?"

If one were to ask their fellow student, the most common answer would be "Heck if I know."

Truth be told, only about 25% of the college population enters the school knowing what they want to do. Of that percentile, less than half will actually obtain a degree in their original course of study. (these figures are estimates)(but true)


So, why am *I* in college? Heck if I know.


Why am I blogging about it? That's another story.


The obvious reason: between classes, homework, facebook, twitter, work, a social life, and sports, apparently I just didn't have enough distractions. No, seriously. It's 11:00 o'clock at night and I have a lot of homework. But I'm doing this instead. Go figure.


Aside from that, I am conducting an informal case study on the inner workings of the dreaded institution known as "college." Basically to keep from going insane. But also, I find the numerous associations and connotations of college, good or bad, to be intriguing. Therefore think of this as a field journal, if you will. For those of you who don't know what that is, go to college.

College isn't the place to go for ideas. ~Helen Keller~