College 101: Ask, Don't Tell
This advice is yet again brought to you by things my students do, to my ongoing bewilderment and frustration. Twice in a single day this week, I had students inform me (sic) that they will be (sic) submitting work that is 1-2 weeks late... in a course that only runs for 5 weeks. There is a clear late work policy in the syllabus. Strangely enough, this policy is not "do whatever, it's fine!"
Here's the thing: I'm happy to offer emergency extensions. Like many of my colleagues, I'm also perfectly happy to offer non-emergency extensions, as long as they're requested in advance. If students are managing their time well enough to ask for an extension before the deadline, I will distribute extensions like Oprah distributing cars. But surfacing from a period of non-submission of work to inform your professor -- who is probably managing a minimum of 100 students across their courses -- that you will be submitting late work, because fuck their rules and fuck their workload... this is not likely to win their goodwill.
