I know, I know, another late blog post. Will you hear me out as to why?
Having soft deadlines is the best humane invention. I’m learning to not feel like I’m taking advantage of it because it’s not like professors doesn’t know what a soft deadline entails, right?
Teachers being hardasses about deadlines just stuck with me terribly. The fear of a zero looms behind me like skyscrapers coming to block the sun. I procrastinate but, this semester, 3/4 of my professors have big red signs floating above them that’s screaming at me, “No late work!”
So, I take my wins where I can. And I get it, hard deadlines are preparing us for the “real world” but nobody’s real world is deadlines so hard that you’ll lose your job over something being a day late, until it is. I’m wrong sometimes but I’m hoping for the sake of all of us that no one’s job is like that. Some people like pressure but no one should deal with that amount of pressure.
College are incredibly outdated and anybody else on whether a hard deadline has helped them or humbled them or whatever else they’ve convinced themselves.
Soft deadlines are easy. They’re lax, as all things should be, and I’m a firm believer in easiness. That’s why my blog posts are usually late, coupled with the fact that I’m running out of things to write about. I feel like I spilled my entire heart into my first post and now I’m just picking out any remaining chunks about myself. Being late is a little bit of my thing but, also, did you know that (apparently, so, don’t take my word for this because every piece of evidence is from an academic journal behind a paywall) Black people perceive time differently from other races?
So, maybe I’m not late.
Unruly Bodies 
Soft deadlines sometimes work for me. The issue with soft deadlines is that I sometimes end up putting that class in the background and forget about it. This semester has been a lot for me so soft deadlines are a god send this semester, and when you have more rigorous classes that you have to dedicate more time time to, classes with soft deadlines save the day. College is a scam, most times I don’t actually end up learning much for the class, especially in science and math classes. All you are taught is to memorize, not necessarily to absorb the information. I prefer classes like these because I can actually think and process ideas, i don’t have to be a robot. I often think about in the future with the next couple generations how college will look, I am scared for the future. The thing I hate about college the most is the way students are tested. It makes no sense. I have seen doctors look up stuff, but we are expected to have the answers all in our head and spew them out in span of an hour and a half. No one in life has all the answers so why are we held to that standard?
I think this is an interesting point of view because there are pros and cons on each side. Deadlines are great when it comes to making sure everyone is on the same page. Everyone turned in their piece and ideally the rest of class is up to speed on the same material. Personally, I learn best when there is less pressure about performance and the emphasis is more on what you can take away from the class as an individual. For example, Dr. Kate’s class has some graded assignments and loose deadlines. However, ultimately we almost all can walk away from the class and saw we learned something new. But it’s not because of intense assignments or strict due dates, there are no huge papers or all-nighters. It’s because she gets us to the core of the class without BS. We discuss real life topics and for some people it might be the first time they heard or even considered such topics. How many people know what it’s like to have an invisible disability? Now, how many people have even considered it or heard the term before? This is just a sprinkle of what we talk about. I get more out of our discussions in class than I would out of a solo reading assignment. Because through discussion you get more ideas, perspective, contrasting opinions, you get more of a break down. In all I think we all need deadlines to hold ourselves accountable and as a class it keeps us organized and united. Deadlines are also important in the real world. I think everyone would love a job where you can afford to be a day late. However, some people can lose their jobs for being a day late and it just is what it is. My dad bids huge construction jobs, if he’s a day late then they might not get the job, something as simple as one day can cost thousands. Nurses and Doctors work on very timely schedules too, if they’re late it can directly impact someone’s health. Imagine they forgot to give meds or review critical labs til the next day.
I can definitely relate to this post, you gotta take your wins where you can. Even more than that, I’ve found it more important to prioritize lately or I end up losing myself in all the things that “need” to get done. I used to knowingly take on more than I can handle and think it was acceptable to just toss sleep and self care to the side. Of course, as one would expect, it caught up to me! It resulted in poor physical and mental health and, ironically, poor grades! I still find myself doing things late at night but I try to balance it out by not having back to back days of neglecting myself.
I entirely agree. So much of academia is built upon old traditions and old ideas about who the students are and how they should learn, much of which has been proven wrong over the last hundred years. Yet here we still are. With insane amounts of homework and terrifying deadlines. Pretty much every person I’ve ever met has told me “you’re not supposed to read everything the professor assigns,” but (nearly) every professor I’ve ever had has expected you to read everything for every class. My reading schedule (I’m an English major) looks like: Monday, a third of a novel and an article of varying length; Tuesday, a play and a novel; Wednesday, another third of a novel and another article; Thursday, another play and another novel. That’s just my reading. I have had to read 200 pages a week for just one class. And we have to write discussion boards or reading responses or take quizzes or participate in class “sufficiently” to prove we’ve done all the reading. Where do they think all this time is coming from? So yeah, I skip readings for the classes I can and my essays come in late. What was I supposed to do?
I thought this was very cleaver. I agree their is no reason for professors to be hard asses, esspecially as students are showing that they care to do the work and will still complete the work. Being upset over someone turning something in a day late is overly obnoxious and unnecessary. When your overwhelmed and stressed as a result of the work you have to do something is gonna give.
First, I would say is that your last sentiments sent me into a ball of laughter. ‘Black people perceive time differently from other races? So, maybe I’m not late.” Is lowkey true, even me being African, a wedding reception that said on the invitation starts at 5pm but all the people won’t be there and the party wouldn’t start until 9pm. Very clever WhereIsMonday. However, I fully agree with you on the sentiments that this life is not based on hard deadlines, and for professors to be so strict on deadlines, especially since we are still going through a pandemonium, you would think they would give us a little slack. And if you think about it, professors, more so with their relationships with students, don’t set hard deadlines for themselves and take WEEEEKS to grade something that they said they will finish in week, but it ends up being almost three weeks. Granted life happens for them, but I don’t think some of them remember that we are going through life as well. I think they believe that sense most of us are young and basically children that we don’t have other priorities and responsibilities that we have to attend to. I would love if more professors pushed for soft deadlines as well, even though knowing myself I will probably procrastinate on that as well, but I wouldn’t be as stressed (which produces better material from me personally) as I am now.
This is a really powerful post, and I totally agree. I feel like with soft deadlines, everyone wins. There are so many unknown circumstances that every student is going through at any given moment that any professor would have no idea about. Hard deadlines also create an incredibly intense layer of stress that makes it even harder to get work turned in on time.