Procrastination: First Draft

If I could retake the Calculus 3 Exam in college, I would study a lot harder. The exam came at a point in the semester where an old, familiar phenomena of “senioritis” was beginning to kick in. It was around Thanksgiving when I began to feel this unusual wave of tiredness. Maybe it was all the L-tryptophan in the turkey that I had been eating, or perhaps it was the continual lack of sleep as my workload was increasing. There were two weeks left in the semester, the last of which was finals week. Most of this first week was either spent sleeping or procrastinating on study time. I had an entire semester to prepare for this finals week, and up to this point, I had been keeping up with my work and performing well on my exams. I was most worried about my German and Physics class, which meant that any of the studying I did manage to do went toward these classes. My standing 4.0 in my Calculus and Engineering courses had me feeling confident, resulting in less preparation time for these exams.

This was my first semester in college, and rolling into this week was an extremely nerve-wracking experience. Teachers had converted into review mode and were no longer teaching new material. I had converted into sleep mode, but made every effort I could to absorb what the teachers were saying in class. The weekend had rolled up a lot faster than I had expected. Once I realized how much I had to do and how little time I had, my heartbeat increased, as well as my adrenal level. Monday was my first exam. My mind raced, “Monday, Monday, Monday.” My Calculus final was my first college final, bright and early at 10:00am. I had been neglecting to study for this class for a very long time. I had been to a few review sessions, but had not prepared on my own.

Saturday night came and I decided that I should at least do something for this class. After all, it was only two days away. I rolled out my textbook and notebook and reviewed one of the four units of the semester. I was not extremely productive, but after a few hours, I rolled into bed. After my daily Sunday activity of religious practice, I remembered how little I had done the night before. It was noon, and I was very tired. So instead of being a model student, I rolled into bed again. I woke up a few hours later to pounding on my door. Opening the door, I found my friend, Duke, standing and holding a controller.

“Jesse, get out here and play Xbox with me!” he said. I thought to myself, “This is not a good idea, but, one game can’t hurt.” After a few hours, I realized it was more than one game. Time had flown and when it became 8pm, it was time to get work done. I had blown off the whole day before my Calculus final, and it finally hit me that I needed to get going. I buckled down and went on a long study binge. I had a friend with me the whole time, so of course we would get distracted every once in a while by sites like Imgur and YouTube. A video of cute puppies playing with rabbits dressed as Easter bunnies was worth more of my time than studying for my Calculus final. It was 2am when I looked at the clock and realized how late it had gotten and how tired I was. I had not covered everything, but I covered enough to be ready for the morning.

The sun came up and when my alarm went off at 9:30, I rolled out of bed. I was both scared and confident at the same time. It’s a feeling like drinking a combination of chocolate milk and orange juice—it just doesn’t sit well. I arrived at my exam room 10 minutes early. My heartbeat increased more and more with each second moving closer to 10am. Tick, tock, tick, tock. I was watching the clock projected on the screen at the front of the room. When the clock struck 10:00, the teaching assistants passed out the exam. My heart was racing, palms were sweating, and nerves were wracking. I was prepared. I was ready for this. Twelve problems, no big deal. I flipped it over to begin. I panicked instantly. There were four more problems than I had expected. Why would the teacher do that to me? “Alright. Calm down, Jesse, you’ll be fine,” I thought.

I made it through the first five problems in 30 minutes. I was making good time and was on track to finish early. I got to the next problem and froze. All I could do was stare at the paper, full of words that looked like a foreign language to me. “No problem,” I thought, “just move to the next one and come back later.” However, the next problem looked just as foreign. Now it was getting more serious. I’ll just move onto the next one. This became a pattern. A paradox where my mind knew how to do these problems, but on the testing day, it didn’t. The next hour and a half resembled an exam from hell. I had calmly made it through the first few problems and then suddenly I did not know what I was doing at all. My blood pressure was through the roof until the two hours were over. By the time I turned in my exam, I had pulled enough hair off my head to create a small cat. What on earth just happened to me?

Turning in the exam with so many insufficient answers and blanks was embarrassing. It obviously seemed like I had learned absolutely nothing that semester. It was bad. Really, really bad. I could not get out of my head how awful that hour and a half had been. At this point, I calculated what I would get in the class if I got a 50% on the final—a 3.0. This was far below what I had expected. I had been doing well all semester and for one test, for one test to bring down my grade this much was a disaster. How could I have done so terribly? I was frustrated with myself. I was in denial that such a thing had just happened to me.

There was no way I was going to let this happen on my other exams. I put away my video games, distanced myself from Duke and his distractions, and moved to a quiet space. Every moment I wasn’t taking an exam, sleeping, or eating, I was studying. The following two days were successful. I didn’t bomb anymore exams and made it through finals week with little disappointment. I was very proud with the recovery that I had made, yet I was still dissatisfied with my Calculus exam. I’ll always remember that in times of despair, hope can always be found. Never give up just because one part of the bigger picture is faded. Always look forward.