Whether you’re scrolling through your Instagram feed or talking to your friends in the library, procrastination is common across campus. Connor Caserio reports on what procrastination means to Northwestern students.
“CORE Library sounds”
Those sounds were the murmuring voices of students in the CORE study space at Northwestern’s Main Library. When I visited CORE and recorded that audio on Sunday afternoon, I noticed that while many students were engrossed in their work, others were doing something probably quite familiar to many listeners—procrastinating.
“I guess like putting off work that you have to like, the later time or like saving it to like, last minute, I guess. So like, not doing work ahead of time, or like staying on top of things is like”
That succinct description of procrastination was delivered by Christian Baluyut, a first-year social policy and economics major.
I spoke to Valea and a few other students for this segment. As someone who tends to procrastinate on work—Side note: that includes this radio segment, I’m so glad my editors don’t know how close to airtime I finished—I found these conversations informative and helpful and hope others, including the students I saw at CORE, will too.
A consensus among the students I talked to seemed to be that, generally, procrastination manifests in one of two ways.
“One of them is like, sitting at a desk, like you have an assignment in front of you, and you’re checking your phone, or you’re doing anything else, but the type of what’s in front of you. And the other type is, where you’re not sitting at a desk where you don’t even want to look at it right now, when you’re going out, you’re doing something else. You’re not even, you don’t even have the idea of committing to the work and like the present.”
The idea that so-called procrastination can be productive is an empowering one. Still, as Cho mentioned, there is a fine line to walk between fulfilling oneself in other areas and just not getting coursework done.
Schwartz, for one, goes through a weekly give-and-take between completing his coursework and doing other things.
“I say, Okay, this is the old stuff I need to get done. And I try and split it up like this is that, like, I want to get the this stuff done this day, like because usually if I’m if I know, I’m going out, like, each night or something, I feel like okay, this is the group of stuff that has to get done before next time. And this has to get in and this stuff has to get done before naptime. And certain things will be like, hey, if this doesn’t get done at all, then I just can’t go at all.”
Ultimately, the murmur of voices I recorded at CORE, reflects the constant, necessary give-and-take between procrastination and getting work done that students must go through.
“CORE Library Sounds”
