As the quarter rapidly progresses and assignments start piling up, some students thrive under the pressure or crash beneath the anxiety brought about by procrastination.
“Procrastination is a bad thing in principal, but everybody does it,” said Andrew Furth, a second-year English and history student. “Just make sure to get the work done when it is needed. I’ve freaked out once in a while but recognized that it was in my control.”
Elizabeth Gong-Guy, director of counseling and psychological services (CAPS) at UCLA, said everyone procrastinates about something at some point during their lives. It is only when delaying certain activities becomes problematic that we care about it, she added.
“The underlying reasons are usually about time management or deeper psychological issues like fear,” Gong-Guy said.
Perfectionism is often deeply imbedded in procrastination, she added.
“If standards are so high that you cannot accept anything less than perfect, then you will become insecure about meeting them and avoid working on that paper altogether,” Gong-Guy added.
Procrastination is a defense response to the anxiety a student initially experiences when overloaded with work, but it ends up failing in some cases and can lead to full-blown panic episodes, she said.
These debilitating states of fear, shortness of breath and feelings of death being imminent, can become the symptoms of procrastination gone wrong, said Colby Moss, a staff clinical social worker at CAPS.
Recent research has shown that the adolescent brain is still developing until the age of 25, so it is important for students to maintain good health habits, sleep enough, eat right and minimize surges in the nervous system by finding coping mechanisms that are effective, Moss said.
UCLA is a very competitive environment and it can lead to excellence and success. People just need the right mechanisms to cope with competition in a healthy manner in order to reach their goals, Moss said.
“We usually work to take the focus off of the outcome altogether,” Moss said. “They are then able to let the chips fall and usually are pleasantly surprised ““ if not, then that provides good information for a place to start to learn something and make adjustments.”
Usually the root of procrastination and its deterrence in success academically, socially and physically comes down to underdeveloped time management skills.
Ginger McCartney, a third-year geography and environmental studies student said procrastination in college has a lot to do with the transition from high school or a community college.
McCartney, who works as a peer counselor in the Academic Advancement Program department, said procrastination in some of the students she has advised has been due to intimidation of the UCLA environment.
“Some new students freak out when they hear “˜15-page paper’ and a lot of it is about fear,” McCartney said. “They can be scared to talk to their professors and decide to avoid the assignment altogether.”
However, Gong-Guy said that procrastination is not at all specific to new coming students, but applies equally to the whole population.
Sometimes the quarter can fly by, leaving little room for procrastination, she added.
“Some students have managed to get through high school with procrastination and succeeded, so they bring those habits to college,” Gong-Guy said.
Some people are able to make procrastination work for them by scheduling enough time for fun, Facebook and work, she said.
Furth said he writes better when under pressure. “When I feel under the gun I feel more driven since there is no more time,” he said. “My life is broken down into blocks of work and no work.”
He argues that if he were to start studying earlier on, his productivity would be lower and less efficient so that time is better spent on other activities.
But, he added, it is important to assess how much time you need and every quarter can be different.
If procrastination can be a method that is adapted by the individual to their own needs, it can be an effective method of balancing work and play. When this balance is lost, help is available for all students, Gong-Guy said.
In the end, she added, success is defined as balance in all areas of life, so understanding yourself and managing your time can lead to more satisfaction in all aspects of becoming successful, not only academically.