As Ron implied, my lack of posting has been due to being busy lately. I had my Advanced User Interfaces final tonight, so now that that's over with I have a take-home final in Advanced Compilers to work on and a gigantic final project for Advanced UI.

This is about the time of year when everyone on campus ratchets up the competition for "who can whine the most about how much work they have". You can't take 3 steps without walking past some sorority girl with her Prada bag talking on her cell phone about how she has 3 b-school exams coming up. The best is in places like the Subway line where groups of 2 or 3 students will enter into an elaborate game of one-upsmanship to see who can claim to be busiest:

Student 1: Man, I didn't sleep at all last night studying for my exam today.
Student 2: Oh yeah? I've got a paper due tomorrow, a problem set due Thursday, 2 finals Friday, and another paper due on Monday.
Student 3: Well I've got a 10 page paper due in one hour that has been assigned since September, but I only have 1 page done since I spent all semester drinking and playing Snood. I've pulled 3 all-nighters in the past 4 days, but haven't actually done any work during this time. Instead, I've spent all night calling people on my cell phone and telling them how much work I have to do.

And then there are the people who take Orgo, the ones who study every night of the whole semester, only to forget everything except what they cram in the final 2 days before the exam.

Here's an idea people: set aside a time to study, then....actually study during that time. This will give you lots of other time in which to relax before taking your tests or writing your papers. Or perhaps you could start your projects in advance! There is no rule that says you have to wait until the night before and then chug 10 Cokes and 2 packs of No-Doz, so if you choose to do so then I, for one, don't want to hear about it.

Posted by: Eileen at December 10, 2003 11:34 AM