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

[iloveruby]

So, I've just submitted my dissertation with 10 minutes to spare. I've been up since midnight finishing it.
My partner thinks that lots of people work like this - I think he's wrong. So, what do you think?

YABU - lots of students will be finishing in a rush
YANBU - being so close to the deadline isn't typical.

To avoid dripfeeding - I have worked so hard on this and felt I had enough time but really struggle with concentration, especially when I'm stressed. Sometimes can only focus for 10 mins at a time. I feel really disappointed in myself because I just wanted this time to be different.

Once your actually working handing in projects and data in with 10 min to spare when you have a deadline will not go down well.

if only that were true @humdrumholybean
i worked in tenders for more than ten years. People missed internal deadlines the whole bloody time with no consequences for them. External deadlines were usually achieved with very little, sometimes seconds, to spare. It is a normal human thing.

Please google inattentive adhd

Interestingly DD1 just started down diagnosis route for this thanks to college suggestion though it's done via GP - though she may age out of disgnosis process before she gets to front of the queue and this area has no adult equivalent service.

I work far better under pressure and always have. I work in a very deadline-heavy industry and rare is the document that comes in way ahead of time. Most stuff arrives just before.

This.

Electronic submission and technical incompetence have made me leave a bit more than 10 minutes these days just in case of tech problems, but otherwise, to the wire here.

I remember doing essays/ projects we had to hand in at University.

I'd always be in the computer labs on the last day and then there would be a huge queue to have it bound before you could hand it on.

I'd always hand it in at least an hour before, but 10 minutes is risks and dangerous- never been that close to a deadline.

Good for you.

OP I have two masters and both were handed in as the clock was striking midnight.

Good luck!

I think its very normal. Though even with my MBA assessments I do try to make sure that I'm submitting them at least an hour before they are due in, just in case the system/my wifi/my PC goes funny. But ask me about my dissertation in 10 months time!

It's not a race.
Obviously starting writing it two hours before submission is very not normal, but I don't think using all the time up to the deadline to do revisions to it etc is abnormal.

Like the other ADHDers who commented, I never work in any other way! Changing meds soon, maybe this will change 😅

Sussex University celebrates last minute submitters in the form of the Dissertation Dash.

That's where my partner went - maybe that is why he thinks its so normal!!

That's where my partner went - maybe that is why he thinks its so normal!!

Just in time = in time.

If you handed it in a few days early, wouldn't you always be thinking "I wonder how much better a mark I could have got if I'd spent a few more days on it?"

I know I would!

I have ADHD and I finished my MA dissertation right before sending it in, and got a first class honours. This was the pattern I followed for both of my degrees to be honest and I always did really well, but it would ALWAYS be down to the wire. I had a friend who started hers(literally wrote the first words) on a Friday morning and it was due on the Monday. I was stressed FOR her but she did well!

I do sometimes end up being last minute with work tasks too but I've done well in my career so far, so it hasn't gotten in my way.

I did OU over 6 years and submitted plenty of assignments at the last minute, usually well into the late grace period. The only thing that matters now is you've done it and submitted it, bloody well done 👏

Congrats on getting it in!

I was exactly the same with my UG and PG dissertations. Plus every other essay throughout my studies. In fact pretty much any deadline I ever have. I can plan and plan until the cows come home, but with terrible procrastination will leave the actual finishing work until the absolute last minute and pull all nighters to get things done.

I too have a referral for suspected inattentive ADHD. I've been able to "manage" for many years, but the combination of poor health, parenting two kids plus work means my carefully constructed world is falling apart somewhat!

Currently working on a final project for a Pg Dip and will be doing the MSc next year.

Submitting with 10 minutes to go is madness. Internet issues, website issues, all manner of things could go wrong and you have left yourself 10 minutes to sort it out? Agree with others it shows exceptionally poor time management - you have MONTHS to do the MSc dissertation and to be still working on it with 10 minutes until the deadline shows very poor planning.

I'm completely the opposite and handed my dissertation in a week before it was due. I was stressing about that to be honest! Anyway, you've submitted it now so just enjoy yourself and don't fret too much about how you got there.

we are allowed tyo upload ours up to a week early, and then it takes whatver is there at the deadline

What if interenet goes down? 10 mins to go could well mean submitted late and NIL points.

so i think whilst a lot of students do this, its a very risky move with no back up plan/no way to appeal if you lose your interenet.

(i have submitted the exams with 1 hour to go, but those are 24 hour ones so expected, even then best to upload the night before a pretty good draft to polish off in morning without worry)

I think it depends how you submit it. I had to submit a paper copy that had clear directions on which font to use and how much space should be left at the side for binding etc. So If u left it to last minute or would have been too late and I would have been marked down .

I used to run the undergraduate dissertation module for a big degree cohort at a big (Russell Group) uni and the first year we went to online submission only I remember just sitting and watching the submissions on the online portal go from a few dozen to hundreds in the hour before the deadline - with loads submitted five minutes before the deadline. I was a bit shocked/horrified - I was the kind of student who would have uploaded mine days beforehand - but it definitely isn't unusual, OP.

I did the same for most of my assignments, dissertation I hate to set a fake deadline with my tutor a week beforehand otherwise I'd have keeled over from stress. I so have diagnosed adhd though plenty of my cohort did the same and don't!

When I did my diploma in Arbitration's exam, this was the subject of the imaginary dispute.

The imaginary legal dispute was about whether a document handed in at the minute of a deadline complied with a contract or not.
As arbitrator I agreed with the case of the imaginary writer, that just in time, is on time.

I passed that Arbitration exam and got a prize for best student (did that exam whilst 7 months pregnant, with my baby kicking throughout the exam!)

So, I agree with you that 10 mins before is on time!

This is exactly how I work. Don’t stress about it, it’s done now.
congrats on completing!

On the course I am on currently, our deadlines for assignments is always 1pm UK time on a Monday. My "in my head" deadline is 5pm the previous Friday. That means that I have the weekend free of stress if it all goes through fine, or the weekend to resolve issues if it doesn't.

The very idea of leaving things until 10 minutes before a hard deadline brings me out in a cold sweat.