![\"funny](\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/09\/funny-pictures-cat-procrastinates-on-couch.jpg\" "\\"funny-pictures-cat-procrastinates-on-couch\\"")
<\/p>\nI’ll be using this lolcat in my classes for sure \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
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And seeing it spurred me to write a bit about studying at university, for those of you who’ll be heading that way this year. Namely, that it’s not like being at school.<\/p>\n
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At uni, you’re expected to take responsibility for your own learning. You’re not going to be chased up to come to class, for example. (Having said that, I do e-mail to anyone who’s missed two or more lab classes, asking what the story is.) Although you shouldn’t take that as licence to wag lectures – too much goes on in them that you can’t really afford to miss. Most lecturers will probably provide their first-year students with study guide notes, but the lecture itself is more than going over those notes. They’ll be put in context; there’ll be interesting little anecdotes, quizzes, all sorts of stuff.<\/p>\n
And you certainly shouldn’t miss a lab class without good reason. They’re an essential part of the paper, & if you miss more than 1-2 without providing a medical certificate or some other documentation, you may end up failing the course. Not a good thing at all. In fact, failing to attend a compulsory class, or hand in a compulsory item of assessment, might have the same result. If you know in advance that you’re going to be away, or that you need an extension on an assignment (for a good<\/i> reason! "I didn’t get around to starting it until last night…" is unlikely to be viewed with any degree of sympathy), then talk with your lecturer or tutor & see what can be done. I’ll do all that I can to help someone who comes to me early when they recognise that they need help, but there’s next to nothing I can do for someone who turns up at my office for the first time, the week before the final exam.<\/p>\n
Which I guess brings me to the point of the lolcat – don’t procrastinate. Manage your time properly. Make lists. Plan ahead. Don’t leave things till the last minute. The potential penalties for not doing this can be quite severe. Our registrar & I are working on approving enrolments at the moment (in fact, both of us were in the office for most of today, which is a bit dire on a lovely sunny Saturday!), and every so often a ‘re-entry appeal’ crops up. These are from people who, for whatever reason, have failed more than a certain proportion of their year’s program of study, & so are not automatically eligible to return to the university. Some are on medical grounds – but in all too many of these appeals the reason given for failing is along the lines of ‘I didn’t manage my time &\/or workload properly’, often accompanied by ‘I didn’t ask for help when I should have’. If someone in this position is given re-entry, then they’ll have to repeat the papers that they failed or, if they change programs, take different ones at the same level. There’s a big cost in this, in both money & time – it may extend the time taken to complete the degree by up to a year, & that’s a lot of fees & student loans.<\/p>\n
Procrastination can be expensive. Don’t do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ll be using this lolcat in my classes for sure \ud83d\ude42 And seeing it spurred me to write a bit about studying at university, for those of you who’ll be heading that way this year. Namely, that it’s not like being at school.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,31],"yoast_head":"\n