Student Strengths And Weaknesses

Soon, I discovered a method to avoid the potential of feeling insubstantial, if only for a few more hours or days. Thus, allow me to introduce you to an old friend, procrastination. My way of thinking soon became, “If I’m not going to get an A, then why even put the effort in?” and consequently, innumerable assignments were put off until five in the morning where it would be due in two hours or it would never reach my teacher’s hands at all. I’m sure most teachers believed the cause to be laziness or a lack of ambition, however I strongly believe that if they’d known the constant stress, self-doubt, and exhaustion that I

Notwithstanding the self-centered connotation of my statement, I believe I have the best hobby in the world. There is, in a matter of fact, no other activity in which I show such devotement and passion as this one. If I could get paid for accomplishing it, I would be an impressively hardworking employee. Nevertheless, I would never feel like I would work. Literally. Because that is what my avocation is defined by, not working. To my mind, procrastinating is undoubtedly the most relaxing occupation ever created, since it simply consists in turning our backs to any labor, effort or responsibilities. However, its positive effects on one’s mind aren’t the only advantages it brings to a person. Actually, I can strongly state that it drastically improves one’s academics. In Gerald Graff’s article Hidden Intellectualism, the author explains how his passion, American football, has as well developed his intellect. He indeed describes it as “full of challenging arguments, debates, problems for analysis, and intricate statistics” (398). So how can procrastination as passion improve one’s work-ethics? Some advocates of early and well organized working would argue that procrastinating only leads to educational delay and that laziness is a vice that should be banned in our society. However, these romantic critics are too dogmatic in their provincial ideology. Procrastinating is extremely beneficial to our studies in a large variety of ways. To begin, it stimulates our imagination.

Don Marquis, a famed humorist, journalist, and playwright remarked: “Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.” If that is so, then I must have been a prodigy. Transitioning to a pristine and more work-driven environment, however, forced me to pay more mind to my grades.

As a mentor who has struggled with finding academic motivation, I think it is important to describe to the new UMKC undergraduate why we procrastinate and what the five-metacognition errors are. The five errors described in the video, Psychology of Action June 2015, are that we often underestimate how long it will take us to complete a specific task. The second reason is that we overestimate how much time is remaining until we must have the task completed. The third reason is that we often think that in the future we will somehow have more motivation to do the work. Another reason is that we believe that we have to feel like it or actually want a task for it to become quality work. In turn, not feeling like doing an assignment will result in

Houston Community College’s chapter of The National Society of Collegiate Scholars is welcoming over 500 new members this semester.

Since the high school, some students develop a certain way of reflection, including myself. To only learn what the teacher teach, to see that your grade reflect what you really are, when you struggle in a subject you cannot improve yourself. Procrastination is one of the greatest feedback of a student who tend to delay his homework, his study in reason of some distraction which will worth him. All this difficulties was a stumbling block for a

Allegheny College has been successfully building its academic reputation by popularizing their “unusual combination of interest and skills” promise to students who are trying to differentiate between various liberal arts colleges. Allegheny College consistently selects top performers from high schools and it ranks in the Top 5% of schools for graduates who go on to earn a doctorate degree. It has been garnering many accolades to their brand such as being named #1 up-and-coming national liberal arts college by U.S. News ranking in Spring 2012 (Roos, 2012). Additionally, Allegheny was also named one of the “Top 25 Best Liberal Arts Colleges” in Washington Monthly’s college rankings for the third year in a row. Moreover, U.S. News & World Report deemed Allegheny College as one of the 12 most innovative liberal arts colleges in the country. With a wide variety of majors offered and a commendable teacher to student ratio, Allegheny College boasts various institutional strengths that have promising financial consequences.

College students have to balance work, family, and college activists and any delaying behavior from within can cause an unbalance. This behavior is called procrastinating and it can lead to problems in many areas of a student’s life. College students are the worst hit by this type of behavior because they have many different activities to focus on instead of studying. These activities can cause students to study when they have time which often is usually too short amount of time. There is a time and place to relax and enjoy life, but if students focus on playing around instead of getting their assignments done, college life will be stressful.

More and more students are piling on mountains of stresses and strains on their bodies but more so on their minds by choosing to procrastinate. According to Dr. Ferrari associate professor of psychology at De Paul University in Chicago, he suggests that the “stress or anxiety we feel over long periods of time can lead to more serious situations such as depression and other forms of mental illnesses... that will make our lives much harder to cope with.” The true ramifications of delaying or stalling assignments is putting one's mental health on the line. Students may gain anxiety, and or depression problems because of the exceeding amount of stress and pressure they put themselves under when students defer tasks. Another effect of procrastination is building up unnecessary amounts of stress.

According to Semb, Glick and Spencer (1979), the level of procrastination increases as an individual stays longer in universities. It was stated by Ellis and Knaus (1977) that approximately, over 70% of college students engage in this activity. Undergraduates tend to start papers during the last minute; they fail to prioritize what should be accomplished first, and as a result, their academic performance is greatly affected. A detrimental effect on their studies leads to having poor grades and eventually, failure in class (Semb, et.al., 1979).

Successful college experiences revolve around three major areas: the transition, being successful in classes/schoolwork, and involvement. These three areas have been determined from my work in the Housing and Residential Programs Department for the past three years, as this is my first lass focusing on student development theories. The three areas are must all be present in some way, shape, or form in order for success. The first step is the transition from high school to college. This is inclusive of moving away from home, and entering into an entirely different miniature society. Incoming students need to learn to adapt to their new surroundings, develop relationships, and a find their support system. Adaptation is important, for many

A great deal of students don’t develop effective study habits and this ultimately results in feeling a decreased sense of self-esteem, stress, disorganisation, poor academic success, and a negative sense of self-efficacy which is linked to poor self-control (Pychyl & Dann, 2010). This is primarily caused by procrastinating. Procrastination is delaying an activity that possesses important benefits for us in the long-term but is voluntarily delayed in the short-term because of short-term impulsive temptations which offer greater immediate rewards (Steel, 2007). I chose to modify this problematic target behaviour because it was where I exercised poor self-control.

Every student sets goals and deadlines to get their work done on time, but some wait until the last minute. As the grade level increases, the work load and difficulty increases, leading to more procrastination. Most students in high school procrastinate, and the question is, why? Is the work too hard? Do their teacher’s leniency cause them to? Do students not have enough time? Do extra-curricular activities take up too much of their time? There has been many other research studies on this topic, but I wanted to see if the students in my survey and interviews had any different correlations.

There are all always two types of students in this small world, first, the students that come ready to class with a three to five-page essay all proofread, nice and stapled with three transition sentences highlighted turned. Second, there are those students who come to class with not even half of a paper written out, unstapled, not a single transitional sentence highlighted and may have plenty of errors due to not proofreading the essay. Those second group of students are procrastinators, which are people who delay an assignment to do the task right before the deadline. Now, why do most of all 99.99% of school boys and girls procrastinate? Well, most people might have problems with lack of focus, or the person might be lazy and decide to

The education we receive today holds the power to shape the individuals we will be in the future. Not only does our education aid our choices throughout school, but also the choices we make in our personal lives like where we choose to work and how we portray ourselves to society. Personally, I have enjoyed my educational experience. I have enjoyed learning new concepts and interacting with new people. Of course, there are obstacles along the way. However, these obstacles have given me the opportunity to realize my strengths and weaknesses and learn to improve in both areas. As a student, I hold onto my perseverance, seek guidance from influential figures in my life, and embrace my challenges to which all contribute to my hope to become the finest version of myself.