Pulling All-Nighters at College

When enlisted to write an article on allnighters, I must admit I experienced quite the wave of ambivalence. On the one hand, I know that pulling an allnighter is perhaps the pinnacle of irresponsible, craptimemanagement, poor decision making, collegiate endeavors. On the other hand, sometimes they're just plainly necessary if you want to get assignments done. My inconclusion was only heightened by the fact that I have never actually been able to pull off an allnighter since I am a 21year old baby and if I don't get my 8 hours someone dies the next day.

In any case, I requested the help of a friend of mine who is known far and wide as the master of allnighters. She confirmed my general assumptions. Yes, sometimes they're just necessary and it's as simple as that. Assignments have to get in and they have to be complete, so why not sacrifice one night and get it done properly? On the other hand, allnighters are most likely to become necessary during finals time, when you actually need to be coherent the next day to say, take a test. Obviously if you pull an allnighters you're probably not going to be in fantastic shape for whatever the next day throws at you.

So! Taking all of this into account, I think I'd generally advise against them with the exception of extremely ridiculous circumstances (think thesis, dead roommate, natural disaster kind of ridiculous circumstances). If you budget your time effectively, there's probably never really going to be any need to pull an allnighter. If you have a big assignment coming up in a few days, do a little piece each night instead of cramming it all the day before. Another idea is to request an extension from whichever professor doled out said assignment. Even another idea, though I definitely wouldn't advise this as a firstline technique, is to hand in the assignment late. Different professors will obviously have different rules about late assignments and sometimes it makes more sense to hand in a thorough, late assignment than a crappy, ontime assignment.

Ultimately, it's up to you to use your judgment and figure out what will best work for your situation. Keep in mind that while useful, making a habit of allnighters will probably leave you with a vampiric complexion and a seriously outofwhack circadian rhythm.