I FEEL THAT | SPRING ‘19
PROCRASTINATION: WHY WE DO IT AND HOW TO STOP Researchers discuss the negative effects that come with waiting till the last minute.
WORDS BY Paige Bennett ILLUSTRATION BY Sophia DelCiappo
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ATHERINE SWANK, a junior majoring in accounting, does everything she can to stay on top of her schoolwork, but sometimes she can’t help but procrastinate.
In addition, Ganga Bhandari, a senior majoring in nursing, says the heavy workload students experience in college can sometimes make it impossible to not procrastinate.
“There’s definitely been times where I’ve had to stay up way later than I would have [wanted] to finish off an assignment before it was due,” Swank says.
“When you have two or three exams a day, it’s too much,” Bhandari says.
Procrastination is a widespread issue among students. According to research unveiled at the Procrastination Research Conference in 2017, one in five people is a chronic procrastinator. For many students, procrastination seems to be an unavoidable consequence of being in college. Swank believes procrastination can be hard to avoid because students have more control over their schedules than they did in the past.
Grace Vonder Brink, a senior majoring in Spanish translation and a tutor at Kent State’s Student Support Services, frequently works with students who have issues with procrastination. Vonder Brink says she once had a student who came in for a session looking for help with a paper that was due in less than two hours. Vonder Brink believes students overestimate their ability to get assignments done quickly, which puts them in positions where they have no option other than to procrastinate.
“You have, in general, more free time [in college]. In high school, your time is more structured,” Swank says. “A lot of people think they can get it done quicker than they do or they just tend to put it off … and all of a sudden, the deadline hits them,” Vonder Brink says.
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