Procrastinating with music

Let's be honest, the first couple of days after you receive the assignment are generally a joke.

You get the assignment and the due date is over a month away so you're not really worried about it right now. You have plenty of time for that, you tell yourself. There are tons more important things to do in the meantime...

Dancing around your room in your underwear while your roommate in class counts as important, right? It's exercise, right?

Procrastinating with coffee

A couple of weeks pass by and you're now three or four weeks out from your deadline, but you still aren't too worried just yet. Maybe you started thinking about a topic, maybe you wrote the due date on your calendar, maybe you thought about looking for some resources before deciding that a run to Starbucks was more important.

Don't deny it, procrastination caffeination is still procrastination and you know it.

Procrastinating with social media

So now you're down to the final two weeks before your deadline (or closer if you really like to come down to the wire in your procrastination and give people like me extreme anxiety). You haven't really done much beyond reading the assignment at this point, but you've added six new friends on Facebook, retweeted eighteen cat videos on Twitter, and got your favorite photo of your summer vacation to three hundred likes on Instgram.

All of that hard work has really paid off, you should reward yourself!

Maybe your reward should be a few hours in the library, looking up some sources for that paper.

Realizing you've procrastinated for too long

Finally, there comes a point in every college student's life at which they realize they have procrastinated for far too long and this may mean that their grade is doomed if they don't get started...like, two days ago.

There's little to no use in complaining at this point, you did it to yourself after all, but it helps to get some of the weight off of your shoulders so you can finally take the walk of shame to the library with all of the other hyper-procrastinators on campus to start looking at research.

Good luck finding an open table.

Receiving an email that says "Deadline Extended"

Frantically searching the library for a place to sit finally gives way and you settle in for your research. You open your browser when, lo and behold, you receive an email from your professor that declares the deadline has been extended.

Don't think you're getting off easy, however. It's only a few extra days and you still haven't started yet.

Reading sources for the first time

Eventually, you've forced yourself into searching a few terms in the online database that has always come to your rescue after past bouts of procrastination. You find a few articles that sound vaguely interesting and dive into your research...

until you realize you have no idea what the heck you're reading.

Time to get a little outside help here.

Going to office hours

Truth be told, I have always thought that going to office hours was extremely helpful...but really weird at the same time.

One-on-one meetings with a professor are very useful if you don't understand the material or if you are not sure you are taking your paper in the right direction, but something about sitting in your professor's office just feels weird. Almost like you're back in elementary school, sitting in the principal's office.

"I'm not in trouble, I promise. I'm just really confused."

Getting extremely confused at office hours

You should also expect to be a little more confused before you can truly understand the answers to your question when you go to office hours. Going in to ask questions about a topic that someone that has potentially devoted years of their and a P.h.D. to can be really rough.

If you don't feel like your brain will start leaking out of your ears at least once before you leave, you still don't understand the topic.

Just hang in there, I promise it will be worth it in the end.

Realizing the perfect thesis

How do you describe the moment of realization that is stumbling across the perfect thesis?

It's relieving because you finally have a starting point, but stressful because you don't know if it will lead anywhere. It's exciting because you are one step closer to a final draft, but frustrating because you now have to do the heavy lifting of synthesizing research with your own ideas.

Overall, it's a pain in the neck of a blessing.

Getting feedback on your first draft

Speaking of pain in the neck, tell me there's someone out there that hates revising as much as I do.

If there is one thing that I feel to be more painful than revision, it's reading feedback on my first drafts. They're never perfect, but that's to be expected. I just never expect that they're as bad as most of the feedback seems to suggest.

Back to the drawing board for a long struggle with my masterpiece turned child's-artwork-piteously-placed-on-the-fridge.

Starting over on your second draft

Revision makes me want to run over my laptop with a steamroller, blasting angry Taylor Swift and crying.

No, really.

Revision can be extremely painful because it feels as though you've found a period of rest because you have earned your A but all of the feedback you've received says otherwise.

If they think it reads as if a toddler wrote it, how can I be expected to transform this paper into a true masterpiece when I only have thirty-six hours before the deadline!?

Going to the Writing Center

Well, you've already asked for feedback from your professor so many times that you start to think that they are hiding from you...now what?

Well, now you can turn to one of the most under-utilized tools that most college campuses offer: the Writing Center.

Sure, it may not be as beneficial as a one-on-one meeting with your professor but it's better than asking your roommate, the poultry science major, to read your paper. At least these people have some kind of training.

Seriously, give it a shot. Tutors can be very helpful in finding errors in your writing and helping you create something that is one step closer to a masterpiece (at least, that's what I like to think we do.)

Prepping for an all-nighter

The answer? An all-nighter.

Throw any and all plans of eating dinner, socializing, and sleeping out of the window because you have a paper to revise (or start, for some of the worst procrastinators) and only a few hours to do it. I hope you have that procrastination coffee set to a boiling hot temperature of "focused" because you're in for the ride of your life, my friend.

No sleep 'till deadline.

Recovering from an all-nighter

Is your body screaming for liquids other than coffee? Food other than a half of a stale PopTart? Just a moment of sleep?

Congrats, my friend, you have just successfully pulled an all-nighter.

Submit your paper and, for the love of God, get some sleep.

Submitting your final draft

Sleep? Who can sleep when you now have a weight off of your shoulders and a free spot in your schedule!?

Time to live it up, knowing that your paper has been written, revised, cried over, and submitted!

Or, you know, you can take a nap.