Help me settle a dispute - finishing MSc dissertation with 10 minutes to spare

I think most students will finish the night before or morning it's due in, probably within hours of the dead line, but literally 10 minutes is cutting it a bit fine. The day mine was die in I spent nearly an hour queueing up to get it bound, along with everyone else who finished it last minute, which seemed to be half the uni.

I submitted mine 2 weeks early so I'm probably at the opposite spectrum to you. I factored in a lot of time for issues which didn't ever arise!

Like I said upthread, it's not a race and nobody gets extra marks for being early. The deadline exists for a reason.
Who cares if it's a week before or a minute before? It's done. Submitted. Equal.

when I have to hand in an big piece of work I usually start work right away fire of inquiries for missing informatio, make lists and get a good skeleton going.

and then I put it in the drawer whilst getting on with my day job and get in a right panic a couple of days before report & presentation are due.

Yet you thought you could judge my professionalism based on one comment on an online forum.

@Thatswhyimacat There is a difference between not managing time correctly and workstyles, the OP even admitted she has not managed her time. It also takes a good manager to get all their facts straight too before jumping to conclusions maybe you are not as good as manger as you think.

Also I think my results and team speak for themselves, but then again you would not know would you as you make assumptions without know the facts or me, based on a comment on an online forum 😚

Yep.

If being a last-minute person was a disqualifier for professional work, I wouldn't be sitting here marking dissertations right now.

If it's in before the deadline, then it's nothing to do with levels of professionalism. It's just what deadlines are for. The person who sets the deadlines does so to give themselves ample time to deal with the documents assuming they arrive at the time of the deadline.

I work in news publishing and we are incredibly deadline-driven. If it arrives before the deadline then that's what matters - the deadlines are set with the assumption that material will arrive any time up until that time. If we needed it earlier, we would set an earlier deadline...

Exactly! If you want it earlier than the deadline, then set the deadline earlier. Otherwise what difference does it make.

Some of the worst dissertations I've seen were submitted very early, I remember this because I remember thinking, I wish you had taken the week that was left and done a better job of it.

It's definitely not 'normal' for most people but it is for me. I have 4, done over a period of 20+ years and I was the same for every one despite promising myself I'd do 'better' this time. I don't have a diagnosis but wouldn't be surprised if I have ADHD.

Don’t be so ridiculous, it doesn’t say anything of the sort 😂

you miss your deadline and fail

Far as I know or have experienced there was never any immediate fail for missing an academic submission deadline - it just meant that your would lose marks for every day beyond the deadline. Which would obviously matter for your grade but wouldn’t usually be all or nothing.

The more frightening thing was the stories recounted to me by an Apple ‘genius’ one summer, of the numerous people who had lost their entire dissertation / thesis through some tech disaster. Pressed the wrong button and wiped everything. (How?) Or watched their billion £ laptop just scramble three years work - that wasn’t backed up anywhere else. Or had their device stolen. Not backed up.

Nowadays I write two paragraphs and email them to myself. If it’s particularly important I email the documents to someone responsible, not living in the same building, with decent smoke alarms …

@flossyfloss432 or you have unrealistic expectations, seeing as many of us other senior professionals are firmly in the last minute club. If you can't account for people's different working styles then you aren't a good manager.

@ReadyToMoveIt Says more about you then me then, I suppose my definition of professionalism is at a higher level than yours.

Ha me too!

Mine too, imavingoops, mine too! He was sendining it from home because of Bloody Covid, so we’re had half the family standing in the doorway shouting ‘Press the bloody button DS!’ at 11:59.

His mate actually missed the deadline the year before and got the thesis mark capped at 40% for it. DS knew that. Still went to the wire. My nerves!

For my first degree, yes, absolutely normal. Wrote my dissertation from scratch the night before and handed it in minutes before the deadline. Wouldn't recommend it but loads of other people were similarly challenged so it didn't feel particularly unusual.

For my MSc I was a mature student with young children so still wrote at speed, but tended to get things done earlier than the deadline as there were fixed parameters to my study time due to childcare. DH took the dc away for 3 days while I wrote up my dissertation in a marathon sprint, and I actually handed it in a few days early because once the dc were back that was it - I couldn't have made use of any extra time. Most people on my course were much younger than me and without dc so worked right up to the wire though!

I remember going to the library the night before mine was due, at 4am, thinking it'd be dead. The library was heaving with stressed students, red bull and coffee in every desk.

How dramatic. I lead a team of professionals, and I have no idea how early or late they were in submitting their dissertations. I also don’t care how close to a deadline they submit work to me, as long as I have it by the deadline. That’s kind of the point of a deadline!

Why not take all the time you have available? There's nothing particularly virtuous about submitting early

That was always my view. I had deadlines before and after my dissertation deadline, plus exams, so it made no real sense to finish it early. I had other priorities before that.

Whilst I agree that 10 minutes before does definitely mean you met the deadline it's worth bearing in mind you may not get leniency in future situations if, say, there's a last minute IT failure. Eg Our job applications portal closes at a specified time, so if you submit even one minute after that your application wouldn't be considered.

No, what it actually shows is that everyone works in different ways and some are more deadline-driven than others.

I just read this and laughed out loud.

Any one who agrees up leaving it until the last minute because they work differently is not some one to take advice from. As others have said what happens if you have a technical difficulty or some thing crops up, you miss your deadline and fail. Your playing with fire and its not some thing to be proud of, this just backs up the current culture of taking no responsibility for your actions and not some one I would be looking to be part of my team either.

Whilst I agree that 10 minutes before does definitely mean you met the deadline it's worth bearing in mind you may not get leniency in future situations if, say, there's a last minute IT failure. Eg Our job applications portal closes at a specified time, so if you submit even one minute after that your application wouldn't be considered.

I'm marking MA dissertations right now. I can see that almost half were submitted in the hour before the deadline!

Also like @shrodingersvaccine says, if you can't submit because of technical problems you screenshot everything, email it to your supervisor, and you won't be penalised.

Why not take all the time you have available? There's nothing particularly virtuous about submitting early.