Ack! Deadlines!

Posted by Naomi Rockler-Gladen Oct 25, 2006

This blog is entry is inspired by the two sweet students who were in my office this morning, one of them in tears, because they had missed my paper deadline. I want to talk about deadlines: how to keep them in perspective, why professors feel they are so important, and how to get deadline extensions if you need them.

I don’t know what’s going on at your school, but at Colorado State University this week, everyone’s having a meltdown. It’s just that time of the semester, you know? Break is still weeks away, and everybody has a long list of deadlines, deadlines, deadlines. When I ask students how they are doing, I am inevitably met with phrases such as, “three papers due this week,” “so freaking tired,” and “Ack! Too much pressure!” (The last phrase is actually the catchphrase of Tweek, my favorite South Park character, but you get the idea.)

So why are professors so insistent on deadlines? Well, it’s mostly because of our crazy schedules. We have a zillion time-consuming projects to complete, just like students do, and one of those projects is to grade our students’ papers. When we plan our schedules, we know that we’re going to get 40 papers on October 20, and we estimate how much time it will take to grade them. If we don’t establish deadlines, the papers would fly in on many different days, making it impossible to schedule the grading. For that reason, some professors get angry when papers don’t get turned in because it seems disrespectful. You know how students hate professors who don’t seem to understand that their class isn’t the only priority students have in their lives? Professors feel the same way about students who don’t respect their time.

I hate to say that another reason we emphasize deadlines is because “it’s for your own good,” but it’s true. You need to learn how to manage your time and meet deadlines now. It’s not going to get any easier once you are working and possibly also juggling a family. In school, the consequences of missing a deadline might be a letter grade or two; at work, missing the deadline could cost a company money and you can lose your job.

That said, there are perfectly good reasons to miss a deadline, but it’s much, much easier to get an extension if you ask before the deadline instead of afterwards. If you tell the professor two weeks ahead of time that have four papers due during the same week and ask for an extension, you might get it. This approach shows the professor that you do respect his or her time and are a responsible, professional person. It’s same approach you’ll take at work; give your boss some notice that you have too much on your plate, and the deadline may get moved. If many students in your class have a big deadline in two classes at the same time, let both professors know, and it’s quite likely that one of them will give the whole class an extension.

Also, if you know at the beginning of the semester that it’s going to be hard to meet deadlines because of illness, family obligations, or something out of the ordinary, let the professor know as soon as possible and he or she will work with you. It’s not necessary to share all your personal details; just let professors know you’re dealing with a problem.

What do you do if you miss a deadline and haven’t had a conversation with your professor? This is harder. Apologize and turn the paper in as soon as you can. If there’s a genuinely good reason why the paper is late, talk to the professor, and maybe you won’t be penalized. Please note that your professor will be leery of any excuse because an awful lot of problems seem to occur in students’ lives when a paper is due! This time around, about 15% of my students missed my paper deadline, even though I assigned the paper over a month ago, and that’s typical. As much as possible, don’t put your paper off until the last minute. Then if you have last minute problems, like a nasty cold or computer problems, it won’t matter so much because the paper is almost done.

But whatever you do, don’t have a meltdown. Test anxiety isn’t productive, and neither is deadline anxiety. It may seem like an emergency situation that your printer doesn’t work on a morning that you need to print out your paper twenty minutes before class, but in the grand scheme of things this isn’t such a big deal, you know? To prevent meltdown, manage your time as well as possible before the deadline, ask for extensions ahead of time if necessary, and keep things in perspective. Oh, and for stress relief, try out these study snacks.