Does this situation sound familiar?

It’s 1 a.m. and you’re writing an eight page paper that’s due in your 9 a.m. class.

You frantically type out those pages you haven’t thought about until now. There are only four things on your mind: the energy drink that’s gone too soon, the jitters from the energy drink, finishing the paper and waking up to turn the paper in.

Finally, some time after 5 a.m., you finish your paper.

You set three different alarms to ensure that you wake up in the morning. Some mysterious presence hits snooze until it’s five minutes before class and you walk into class three seconds before the teacher to hand in your paper.

Pretty soon Eastern will be full of students for the fall semester. Learn now not to procrastinate before it becomes a problem.

Procrastinating can lead to failed classes and low grade point averages. Those are not good things.

Students need to learn to schedule their time. There’s a time for work and there’s a time for play. Learn to balance them.

Do not wait until the day before a paper is due to write it.

Even if that paper gets you a low passing grade, you could do better with more time and effort put into working on the paper instead of your trick shots for beer pong or bags.

There’s the old saying: “C’s still get degrees,” but I say, “C’s don’t get scholarships.”

You do not need to spend four hours with no break on a paper that isn’t due for a month either. An hour of work should be relieved by a 10-minute break.

Take a week to work on the paper; about an hour a day should suffice. For longer papers you should expect and plan accordingly to spend more time on them.

When it comes to research papers, remember to include time to go to the library when you know it’ll be open.

Starting your research paper at midnight with no prepared materials means you might be rushing to find and check out books before the library closes.

According to Murphy’s Law, if you’re starting your paper the day before it’s due and need sources from the library, those sources will not be available to you and your teacher won’t accept online sources.

Students need to remember that good work takes time. You have plenty of it. Use it wisely.

Julia Carlucci can be reached at 581-7942 or at [email protected].