e’ve heard it said all our lives. Our elementary school teachers warned us about the horrors that await us in middle school. Our middle school teachers preached how kind they were compared to the harrowing high school teachers. But when we got there we realized that we could handle the pressures of high school just as well as middle school and elementary before. All of our lives we’ve heard, “You can get away with this now, but just wait until you get to…”
Most of us figured that college would be the end of mercy. If your house burned down, your paper would still be due in class the next day. Fortunately, those horror stories we’ve grown up with did not come to fruition. Contrary to popular belief, college professors are human beings who have had family emergencies, technology issues or health issues affect their past. They’ve been there; they know how you’re feeling.
Deadline extensions can, of course, be a bad thing. I would imagine newspaper reporters don’t ask for too many deadline extensions. If you apply for a job, you had better get your resume in the exact time they tell you they want it.
That being said, I’ve always respected a professor’s good judgment. Professors know more about their students than given credit for. They know who does the reading. They know who takes notes. They know the kids who had a genuine problem which prevented them from getting their work done on time from the kids who just couldn’t bring themselves to do the assignment yet.
I had a 30-page research paper due in my history class last year. I’m a fickle person, so my topic was constantly evolving. As my topic evolved and got more and more specific, the sources I needed changed, and I rewrote my paper several times. Though I had not waited around to get started when the paper was first assigned, I still had eleven pages to write by the time the week of the deadline rolled around. I was resolved to finish it in time, but when I went to my professor, he asked to see what I had done.
“Don’t worry. I’ll get it done,” I insisted. He raised his eyebrows at me and stuck out his hand. I hesitantly handed him my paper.
“You won’t get a minute of sleep all week if you try,” he warned me.
“That’s fine!” I exclaimed. “I love Starbucks. I’ll buy Mountain Dew. I’ll be good.”
He shook his head firmly: “No one writes well at 4 a.m. If I give you until Monday, will you get it done?”
“Yes, sir” and I did. Upon perusing the final copy, he commented that it might be worth publishing. I have no doubt a copy handed in on Friday would not have been.
Because I had such a close relationship with my professor, he knew I had not been blowing off his class. I had been in his office frequently to ask questions, get his opinion on sources and have him read over my drafts. He had no reason to doubt I had been doing my best to hand in an excellent paper on time. Unfortunately, life happens. Sometimes you just need a little bit more time. He had no problem accommodating me because he knew it was in my best interest. If I had only three pages done because I wanted to go to sporting events or parties rather than do what was expected of me, his leniency would have been hurting me instead.
Deciding when an extension is acceptable and when it is unnecessary can be a precarious decision, but one that I, and a few classmates I’ve spoken to, feel is almost always correctly made by the professors. No one can say, “Deadlines should only be extended in case of…” If you forget that your paper is due, you should not be shown leniency. If you had months to do it, but start the week before it is due, you should not be shown leniency. Besides those circumstances, I think it is a very gray area.
Yes, deadlines will be important as we step into the “real world.” But, we have all survived the things we’ve been warned about — middle school, high school and now college. We have been shown compassion and mercy, learned from it and done better each time. We continually grow and adapt to our new environments. We act more responsibly in college than we did in high school, and we’ll act more responsibly in our careers than we did in college. Having professors show some leniency when it comes to deadlines will not cripple our generation or make us soft. It will just teach us to show compassion and mercy to the generations which follow us in their journeys.
