Student Types Essay

As I watched students arrive at school to hand in a Journalism assignment, I noticed that many of us prepare for assignments in a different way. We hand in our papers in on time; however, our preparedness varies greatly. Some arrive with a frantic expression on their face, hair twisting in every direction after being up all night, and asking around for a stapler in a high-pitched voice. I will name this group of students Team Procrastinators. There are those who arrive in a state of complete calm; makeup and hair done perfectly, no bags under their eyes, and they walk up to the office to hand in their assignment with complete confidence. This group is appropriately named Team Time Management. The third group of students, named Team Slackers, is comprised of the select few in the Creative Communications program that finish their papers in under an hour, fail to edit, and think that their writing is much better after a few beers.

I believe the majority of students fall into the Team Procrastinators category. Some cases of procrastination, however, are much more severe than others. First, we have the students who are organized and care about their work, they simply put it off until they feel the welcome pang of adrenalin that accompanies the pressure and stress associated with the upcoming deadline. Second, there are the ones who are not organized at all; they do still care about their work but often find themselves watching TV. These students waste a lot of their time just organizing their binders in order to find the assignment sheet, and wait until the last minute to get their final quotes from sources. The final group of procrastinators, who suffer the most from this condition, are the students who cannot bring themselves to begin working on an assignment until that pang of adrenalin becomes a stab in their stomach because it is now midnight, and their assignment is due in eight hours.

The second largest group of students falls into the Team Time Management category. Past school and life experiences have taught this group to organize and schedule their time in order to get all that is required done within the appropriate amount of time. The degree of time management differs within this section. For example, some are so organized and scheduled that people accuse them of having Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, while others manage themselves well without stressing out over every little thing. The OCD bunch are the ones who on their way up to hand in their assignment are still looking to find an error even though they wouldn’t be able to fix it anyway, while the less stressed group know to not even venture a final glance to avoid the feeling of stress. That is the main difference between the two sides of Team Time Management: one side has learned how to avoid stressing out.

Team Slackers make up the last category of students. These students do the work, but there is no effort or drive behind it. However in my opinion, there are two different types of slackers: the casual and the eternal. The casual slackers, which I admit to being on the rare occasion, are students who mostly have good time management skills, and really care about their work, but every once in a while need a break from school. And because you cannot simply go to the program coordinator to book a vacation, they slack off for a week or two. These people will almost always bounce back from their zombie-like state and work a bit harder than usual for the next while to prove they belong in Team Time Management. But the eternal slackers may be above all help. They grew up with the habit of slacking becoming more prominent as they aged. They learned how to slide by in high school and unfortunately never snapped out of the behavior.

These classifications of students are of vital importance to college-goers today. If you can recognize what type of student you are, you are more likely to tweak your performance for the better. If you are in the OCD bunch of Team Time Management, you may be able to learn how to not get stressed out. If you are a procrastinator, you can learn the errors of your ways and work on your time management skills. And finally, if you are a slacker, you must either snap out of it quickly to give yourself a chance to succeed, or continue to roll the dice on your future.