November work blues

There's a weird realization after snapping out of the hangover on Halloween and the audacious, outlandish and flamboyant costume you were wearing the previous night (assuming college students do these types of things).

It's November.

It's easily a tougher month than December and the leadup to finals, I have to say, in my now third year here at Marquette. In a lot of cases, it's the projects that have been the white elephant in the room since they were introduced on syllabus day are now re-emerging from their hiatus.

They've been due since day one, and you know they exist, but you don't want to think about them. Or start on them.

I've blogged in this space that on a personal level and I'm sure many of my other friends, colleagues and aquaintances would agree, that procrastination and time management are half the battle.

We all have a wealth of projects, papers, articles and the like - and for that matter all the professors have to grade these - but the average college student doesn't know when to start working on something until it is the night or two before it is due.

Sure, the project suffers at that rate, but hey, so long as it's done, right?

With the wealth of projects, naturally, some will get more emphasis than others. It's completely unreasonable to expect perfection on each.

But managing the time and starting as early as possible could prevent the inevitable academic downfall and lack of social life that happens as a result of spending all hours in Raynor, Memorial, Cudahy or Marquette Place. We could do it, we just choose not to.

Case in point, the major project for this newly renumbered JOUR 4200 class for Dr. Byers. A team project of creating a Web site with stories, photos, videos and audio is the coup de grace of all we've learned this semester but I highly doubt there has been much in the way of starting across the board other than preliminary meetings and a planned outline.

On a personal level, I just have to look at the week ahead. At least three scheduled interviews for a Marquette Journal story that will run next month and is due Tuesday. I have a Journal column due Wednesday. There are the usual Marquette Tribune beat stories due Monday and Wednesday. There is a THEO test Wednesday, a PHIL paper due Thursday, and work on papers for both of my other JOUR classes. That's just this week.

I've heard of people who are getting hammered by 5 or 6 exams in the span of one week. There's something in the system here - and I don't know if it exists at other universities but I figure they do - where certain weeks, the entire university is bombarded with work.

I don't know how it all transpires - perhaps something to do with university standards and when things have to be done by - but either way, it usually happens in November.

The few weeks in-between now and Thanksgiving will make us collectively crave not only the turkey, but the sleepiness that comes from a break in the work and the tryptophan.

Game on.