Cracking open your computer to work on an assignment for the first time, hours before a deadline, is a familiar song and dance for college students. With deadlines quickly approaching, the Cal State Monterey Bay Collaborative Learning Center (CLC) hosted their annual “Long Night Against Procrastination,” one of the last chances for all students to get ahead of their studies before finals week.
The center welcomed students by asking the course they would be studying for, then directing them accordingly to one of the desks or rooms that provided specific assistance. The event hosted over 10 course specific sections and had about three tutors available while people were working.
The event has grown in size each year since its start over 20 years ago, now using two rooms in the center, along with room 2145 and three classrooms on the first floor of the library. Those spaces provided drop in tutoring for students for the duration of the event, six hours.
“Community means everything. Sometimes it means the difference between failing and succeeding,” said Karen Uribe, the tutorial support coordinator for the CLC. “Students really just are able to grasp concepts that sometimes they’re not grasping in their classrooms here. And I think that’s really the goal of the event is to help students, you know, walk into the space and realize that even though they think it’s not something that they need, it’s something that can definitely benefit them.”
Throughout the center, tutors were intermixed with about 30 students, some were sitting with students while others were walking around and would periodically approach students to ask what they were working on and if there was anything they needed help with.
“Without the tutors, I might not pass the class. And being here helps me feel like I’m not lost in the dark alone by myself,” said Jacod Metzen, a second year marine science major, as they were completing a lab for STAT 250.
Many of the students were situated in groups of three to five while they worked through homework problems or study guides together.
“There’s tutors here. You can ask them questions. You can ask your friends questions,” said Valentino Frankovsky, a second year marine science major. ”I’ve found that even if I’m around people who aren’t doing the same thing as me, just like being around people helps me focus a lot more. When I’m by myself, I end up just getting demotivated and I pull out my phone.”
The center not only provided tutors, but food and an assortment of different fidget toys and crafts for students to utilize.
Along the wall of the center, long tables held nachos, pizza and cookies that were refilled through the event. Students also had the opportunity to take a break from their studies, using a table full of different craft supplies, specifically clay was being used to sculpt different characters throughout the night.
“I think so often academics in general is thought of as this kind of insurmountable mountain that all the students have to push over themselves, but really that’s what the CLC is here for is to make sure that they’re thinking about things as a cooperative experience,” said Brian Sands, an environmental biology tutor. “So much of learning is cooperative and so activities, tutors and days like this are really geared toward making sure that learning is fun, accessible and productive.”
Students came in and out of the center throughout the hours that it was open, all leaving with different levels of completed work but they are leaving with it started.
“A student earlier today who mentioned that a 12 o’clock deadline is when she does her best work and we’re here until 11 o’clock, so instead of this idea that ‘I’m going to go home and maybe grind out for this last little bit of the semester’ we’re here so that you have somebody to talk to who might be able to help with that procrastination a little bit,” said Sands. “Whether it’s pushing students toward getting started on something that they might get started on at 11 o’clock on Friday, they get to start today at 11 o’clock on Thursday.”