I'm sure you've been lectured about time management in the past and believe me, that's NOT what I'm about to do. In fact, I'm going to tell you that I'm still not great at time management and I've made it to my senior year of college. Some people spend too little time on schoolwork and too much time having fun. I'm one of those other weird people though. Schoolwork often takes me longer to do than it should and it's not because I have a problem with it or don't understand. I like to turn in the best work that I possibly can because I want to be able to use it for my portfolio so that I can get a job and don't have to do a lot of extra work later.
In college, you'll learn which classes you need to spend more time on and what classes you can spend less time on. The important thing to note is that it's not about being lazy, it's about being smart. I have one class that the teacher grades our homework in three points and each of those points count for having completed one of the three sections of each assignment. Obviously, there's not much point in writing the best essays ever for this class because they're not being seriously looked at for a grade. However, that doesn't just mean an open excuse to blow off a homework assignment. It's still important to do the assignments and to do them well. You'll learn though, that you should spend a shorter amount of time on these kinds of assignments than the ones that matter more or count as more of your grade or that you can use in the future for your portfolio.
Also right now, I am taking a class where I was assigned to write a 3 page minimum paper, double spaced. That's not a very long paper at all and it's pretty easy to get done quickly. However, the topic was of interest to me (internet marketing techniques) and I quickly got carried away as I often do. We were required to cite at least one source (book or internet) and I got carried away with my research too because I love doing it when the topic is an interesting one. I got on EBSCOhost and found about 10 different articles that were of interest and related directly to my topic. One of the best lessons I've learned from my English teachers here at La Roche is to never underestimate the power of EBSCOhost as a resource! You'll have unique sources that are more reliable than ones other people come up with. Looking through all my research and organizing my paper took a long time. Getting to three pages took maybe a half hour. I won't admit to how long it took me to be done with my paper, but some hours later I ended up with 16 pages!
Admittedly, I spent way too long on this assignment. The only thing that could justify this much time spent on a paper going above and beyond would be if I were to use it as part of a thesis for a senior seminar. However, I'm a graphic design student and we don't have to write a thesis for our senior seminar; we just have to present a design solution for a client. I am hoping to write a book about marketing yourself on the internet or something one day when I have some free time, so maybe this will come in handy then. Who knows? I did learn my lesson though and it's doubtful that I will overwork myself that much and that unnecessarily again.
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