Procrastination: if you have something constructive to do, read this instead.

By Alfred Hatt

University life, as you either already know or are rapidly coming to learn, can be a stressful existence. Deadlines, lectures, reading, frantic note-taking and sometimes despairing non-comprehension: these are features of our day to day grind which were somehow omitted from that glittering prospectus package. I don’t think I’m alone in feeling a little cheated; not by any specific party, just generally; a notion that the utopia I envisaged upon signing up has considerable leanings toward the mundane and soul-destroying, in reality.

In some this situation brings out the best. For most however, the response to the work load is one of devastatingly abject misery. I certainly find myself in the latter bracket. Nonetheless, undefeated and not to be deterred, we have developed various coping mechanisms. I have devoted many hours of my time to the study of the resulting phenomena: procrastination - the process of deferring, indefinitely, that which surely must be done.

It is important to distinguish the above from his lacklustre counterpart: the practitioner of sheer laziness. The methodology of the genuine procrastinator is a process of resource transference, away from an undesired task and onto any other object. A disdain for prescription is at the core of his philosophy. The more impending and important the designated project, the lower its position in the procrastinator’s twisted hierarchy of priority.

Procrastination of this brand is a cripplingly potent self-inflicted mental disease. In order that you are able to diagnose when you have become symptomatic, I have isolated the three modes of personality in which the ailment presents itself: Activism, Pragmatism and Connoisseurism - the latter of which has, alas, become terminal.

The activist uses a continually replenishing backlog of physical tasks in order to delay and pervert the course of his/her focus. Impromptu quarter marathons; masturbation; knitting; chin-ups; “Ultimate Frisbee” training sessions: all are standard diversionary techniques employed by sufferers. On any given day, in or around any given student dwelling, one can observe the activist about his business; seamlessly launching from one such task to the next, endowed with an aura of unusual urgency – the product of a latent sense of self-betrayal.

Pragmatists have evolved to be less dogmatic in their preferred sources of distraction. Most are content to rely upon objects in their immediate surroundings to provide a diversion from the academically beneficial. A fixation with the digital world is often experienced by the pragmatist: Spider Solitaire; Blast-Billiards; Facebook; Poker Stars; online I.Q tests; Wikipedia – any platform for the possible attainment of pseudo-intellectual, financial or social status. If you are exhibiting such symptoms, seek help now, it is not yet too late.

Connoisseurism is the pitiful point of no return. Gone is any wavering of resolve, replaced instead by an unhealthy appreciation for the irony of the game itself. The connoisseur’s behaviour is characterised by projects - this word best describes their magnitude - of the following ilk: word-processed time tables and lists of “essential” tasks; complex filing procedures, designed with the external motive of ‘increasing working efficiency’; long meditation on the appropriate use of grammar in notes of self encouragement - ‘You pay £3000 a year for this, don’t be a C***’ (perhaps an exclamation mark for emphasis?); articles, written on the nature of procrastination and its various permutations. At this stage, palliative care is the only recourse.

There is an innate fallacy within the procrastinator’s approach: the work evaded is often outweighed, both in terms of volume and difficulty, by the tasks created to replace it. If one could only harness this energy, instead of allowing it to be spurned on the futile and inherently pointless, the potential contribution toward human advancement could be enormous. Given an assignment of sufficient size and gravity, the subsequent attempts to shirk it could be channelled into the fields of science and medicine. A cure for Cancer; the HIV inoculation; a solution to the pending global energy crisis: all of these are potential milestones within the remit of possibility. Someone needs to shoulder this responsibility and unite the procrastinators in their efforts. I would do it myself but, the thing is, I have an essay to write.

Welcome to (Historic) Warwick

By Catherine Dent

I think I have discovered a way to launch Warwick up that final few places in the league tables, we need some spires. I have recently had cause to spend some time in Cambridge and found myself wondering around in awe. Now this is not because of any simmering regrets about my own unsuccessful dally into the parallel world that is Oxbridge (of course, like nearly everyone at Warwick, I was going to turn them down anyway), but more because it is so damn pretty. See, despite claims that the university rankings are based on academic performance, research and magic beans, I think the reason Oxford and Cambridge are the best universities in the country is because walking around them makes you feel like you’re in Harry Potter. How can you fail to love somewhere that allows you to fulfil those wizarding desires that, although only a few are brave (strange) enough to admit to it, we all possess (continuing on this theme if we’re going to have the buildings, we might as well have the gowns as well, then we can all pretend to be Snape, go on you know you want to!)

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Warwick (when I’m not seething with anger at the library barriers/ the library computers/ the unreliable internet etc etc), but I think its image would be greatly improved by a bit of a gothic make-over. Just because we don’t have 800 years worth of history and the buildings to match, doesn’t mean we can’t fake it. We could stick a few spires on top of the library, a turret onto humanities, a few gargoyles dotted around the place and start punting up and down the maths and stats lake. I think the result of this would be a university with the down-to-earth atmosphere of Warwick and the skyline of somewhere much more pretentious, who could possibly resist that delightful combination?  The university will definitely agree to it, think of the money we could make from tourists! We will be shooting up the rankings in no time.