Can Colleges Do Without Deadlines?

Much of undergraduate life—much of life in general—is defined by what psychologists call motivational conflict, which is when a person has the incentive to do two things but can choose only one. It’s Saturday night, your friends are going out, and you have a term paper due on Tuesday. If you stay home, plugging away at a draft, you may be distracted by your resentment. But, if you join your friends, a cloud of dread may hang over you all evening. The either-or is grim: are you a grind, or are you a flake? Perhaps you are both, in which case you will neither socialize nor work but instead will stay home playing Elden Ring, all the while promising yourself that you will start working in five minutes, until five minutes has become five hours and you collapse into bed in a heap of exhaustion and shame.