Meeting deadlines

During your time at university, deadlines are something that you will come up against in every single module. You can't avoid them, but they don't have to become your undoing. Winning the war against deadlines is a series of small battles, and those battles start in the very first week. Follow our battle plan for success.

• In the front of your diary or folder (or whatever new-fangled gadget you have this week), make a table where you can enter all your prospective deadlines as and when you get them. Read your module handbooks carefully, within the first week. Any mention of an assignment, exam or test, get the details (module name, type of assessment, value of assessment, and due date) into the table. When you have all the details of every assessment on every module, re-write the table in date order and DO NOT lose it. Refer to it regularly.
• Prioritise your assessments. Obviously it would be nice to just tackle them all in date order, but this is not always possible. Some assignments can be started earlier than others, especially if the lectures for that topic have already been given and you have done some reading. You should also prioritise assessments of greater value over ones of lesser value, but don't let any of them slip - you will score zero for a late assignment, no matter how hard you've worked on it. You should also prioritise assessed work over other things like playing an extra game of Dungeons and Dragons, or whatever it is you crazy kids do for kicks.
• Nearer the end of term, do good old-fashioned time-tabling. Get your diary, write in all your outstanding assignments and exams and allocate time-slots each day to focusing on one assignment or exam revision. Scheduling your study will help you identify possible revision conflicts, and help you work out on what date you should have started any revision by.
• If you run into problems and things start to slip, then see your tutor as soon as possible. They are there to help you after all, and goodness only knows this course is costing you enough. They can help you get re-focused. If you run into personal problems which have impacted on your studying, you can apply for mitigating circumstances. This is informing the university that, because of something extra-ordinary that has happened to you (such as illness, bereavement or family emergencies) you deserve this to be taken into account for the assessment. Speak to your department office to do this, but beware - you may only get one chance at applying, so make it good. Bear in mind also that you will likely have to submit evidence to back up your claims.

So good luck in your battles and I hope you win the war.