Under Pressure - third article for the uni paper.

For reasons that couldn’t be helped I was given less than a day to write this article; talk about working under pressure. My first thought was ‘bloody hell, what am I going to write about?!’ but after regaining my breath and appropriate English I decided to use my feeling of panic to structure the article. The way that I’d reacted to having such a short amount of time to write made me think about whether as students do we work better under pressure…or not?

I asked my friend Millie how she works best and she said “definitely under pressure, I’m lazy so being under pressure motivates me to work.” Whether this is the best way to look at it or not, it works for her and for me as well. I find it very difficult to work with no pressure at all and even though I get myself stressed out and work myself into a state, without that pressure it feels like there’s no urgency to finish my assignment! My housemate Hannah said that working under pressure is easier as you have no other choice; you just “have to do it.” This is true; I suppose there’s that feeling of adrenaline when your work has be finished and handed in by 3pm. It almost becomes exciting and that sense of relief you get once it’s done is just the best feeling!

While writing all of this, I got thinking about whether there are any other ‘pressures’ which affect us as students; big or small. I think there’s a constant pressure to do well which may possibly come from our parents but on the whole I think it comes from us; someone I spoke to said that they put a lot of pressure on themselves to work harder than they did in their A-Level’s to prove that they can achieve more. Things become more pressurized when you know that someone is relying on you; whether it’s finishing that presentation for Monday or booking a rehearsal space or even writing a decent article and handing it in on time!

If leaving your assignments to the last minute is what works for you then keep going, whether it’s the most sensible thing to do is debateable, but on the whole the people that I’ve spoken to have said that working under pressure is better for them and I agree.