Cheyenne Brannan

Emily Jarema
English 111
4-28-14
Time Management
Time management is something that everyone has to deal with in some way or
another. This is when you have to decide how much time you will spend on doing
something, and whether or not its the best choice. Even though that rarely runs across
your mind if its a good idea to spend that much time on things like Facebook, Texting,
and various other things. Many people end up spending as much time as they can doing
whatever they want and just having fun, then they only have a little time to hurry up and
get things that they really need done. For college students things are getting less and
less time spent on them, due to distractions, or just being used to spending a certain
amount of time on something.
Time management is and will probably always be a concern in college, knowing
when to do things and how much time should be spent on it whether it is school work, a
job, or the internet. This could be caused by many things. It could be due to students
lacking study skills or that they just cant understand the value of learning something
new. Nancy Hass, a freelance journalist living in New York, tells us in her article that If
national statistics are any indication, three-quarters of Facebook users log on every day,
and average users check their sites six times a day. Popular on college campuses, the
site is among the top ten most visited on the internet (Hass). Nancy sees this as a huge
problem since students are spending a lot of time on Facebook, as if they are almost
addicted to it. She is saying that most people who use Facebook log in everyday and
usually they check their account six times a day. This is just part in proving that the
internet is part of the contribution to problems with time management in college. Since
this is a very common site that is visited by college students, its a way for people to
stay connected and can also be very addicting, resulting in not being able to ignore it.
This is where Lee would say that its addicting since they can just send a quick message
back thats only a few letters long. And then they can go on to doing other things but
they jump right back to replying since its quick and easy, so why not just keep talking to
people. Lee is thinking that technology is a big problem and students seem to be more
interested in that then doing their work. All this is doing is making the students less
interested in compleating their assignments to the fullest that they can. Robin Raskin, a
technology consultant that has three children that are college students who all use
Facebook says theres something about all that ivy climbing up those walls that makes
kids feel theyre safe, but anybody can get in there who wants to (Hass). She is
explaining that kids love to spread gossip and write things on their walls, but little do
they know that the stuff the post isnt actually private from bystanders. Even if they have
their profiles set on private if someone wants to see your information that bad they can
gain access of it.
While Nancy Hass feels that Facebook is a big contributor to time management
problems in college. Theodore Sizer a retired professor of education from brown
university and the author of What High School Is. He believes that its not just
Facebook causing the problem but that high school is a problem with time management.
In his article he discusses how you have class after class and just get pushed through
them and in college your classes wont necessarily be right after one another, you could
only have one class once a week you never know. A very common question asked by
the teachers in high school is How much time do I have with my kids. (Sizer) what this
is explaining is that high school teachers never really know how much time they will get
with the students, so they have no way in knowing how much material they will get to go
through. Also in high school they are expected to have their stuff done for the next class
which is the next day. While in college you only have the class a few times a week
sometimes only once, so you tend to say oh I have time to get my paper done and you
just push it off. So since you have more time to do your assignments in college you
seem to just think you can do them all at the last minute since you have lots of time, but
thats not always the case. A lot of the time you will try and rush to get things done and
sometimes you even take shortcuts to get there.
Jennifer Lee a reporter for the New York Times, a former technology reporter and
now she writes for the metro section. She writes about Jacqueline Harding an eighth-
grade English teacher and tells how she wrote a list on her whiteboard saying words
that the students need to know such as: there, their, theyre, your , youre, to too two, its
and its. But this year she added a new list onto the whiteboard saying: u, r, Ur, b4, wuz,
cuz, and 2. She gave her students a warning this year saying if I see this in your
assignments, I will take points off (Lee). She is trying to make sure that her students
know how to write and are not just using shortcuts to finish their work faster, or to just
wait till last minute and then quickly just through together a paper. This is what many
people do no matter what grade youre in or even if youre in college, its just a habit to
try and hurry and finish your work as quick as you can while taking up as little time as
you can. This is where seizer would agree with Jennifer saying that this texting lingo
problem would have to relate to high school. Sizer would say this because many times
students text in high school during class. So they may be confusing there paper with a
text message and just quickly writing down there answer. This results as a problem in
their class, consisting of them getting lower grades due to not paying attention in class.
Sizer thinks that students have trouble with time management in college due to high
school, since you go from class to class and in college you might only have one or two
classes in a week. So if that means using text lingo then so be it, as long as they get
there stuff done on time. This is another problem with time management since people
are thinking that they can just wait till last minute and then just use text lingo. These are
many reasons why college students have problems with time management and some of
the problems that students have trouble managing their time spent on doing these
things. This is where Nancy Hass would agree with Lee saying that technology is a big
problem. Not only students are spending a lot of time on Facebook but then when they
go to do assignments for class, their text lingo is bleeding into it. We cannot deny the
impact of Facebook, but we believe that its the responsibility of the institution to find
ways to create the most positive communities. This is what Roger Casey the dean of
faculty says he also says that these communities can be positive or negative. They are
saying that even though we cant deny what an impact Facebook has on everything its
not our responsibility either way. They are saying that the stuff you post on Facebook
can either have a positive or negative outcome. It more or less depends on whether or
not people find it harmful or helpful. These are reasons that Jacqueline Harding puts up
a list of words that she doesnt want used in her class, otherwise you will get marked
down for having them in your work. By doing this youre going to just get lower grades
which in the long shot wont be helping you at all.
As we all know that its hard to manage time for college there are actually a lot of
students who drop out, due to one of the top four reasons for dropping out, other than
the economic and personal reasons and not being able to make it academically, is the
inability to get organized, (Maes) says Diana Scharf Hunt. Shes a co-author with Pam
Hait of Studying Smart: Time Management for College Students. She is explaining that
students arent able to be organized and understand how much work and determination
it takes to be in college. Many students need to manage their time more efficiently and
not just think that they can do it last minute. The problem with the students not being
able to manage their time could be many things, but one thing is that when in high
school you have your day managed for you but its a whole different story when it
comes to college. You dont have someone there to tell you to go to class or finish your
work, you only have yourself to make sure that youre actually going. Nancy Maes
agrees with all of the other authors she believes that all of these things should have a
time limit to them so that youre not just wasting time that could be used for college
assignments. But rather than that your actually getting your stuff done before so you
wont be there last minute trying to use shortcuts and just finish up an assignment to get
it done and over with.
While these authors are explaining that yes Facebook, using texting lingo, High
school and many other things contribute to time management problems. There are
many things that you could do to try and resolve them, for example set time limits for
doing things like Facebook, or texting. Then set more time off to the side then you think
you will need to work on assignments. After you have finished your assignment you will
feel better that you finished early, and you will most likely keep on making extra time for
work. Then after you finish you can do all of the fun stuff you want like texting, being on
Facebook, or whatever you do on your free time.