Student writes his entire dissertation in one 40-hour sitting, gets a 2:1 - Polidicks

All of my best papers have been made during last minute, cram sessions. A correctly worded and well done 10,000 word essay written in 3 days is the epitome of cram sessions.

[QUOTE=Kommodore;47408701]the fact that this went public may or may not actually hurt his chances of getting into a serious graduate program given that earning the personal confidence of your faculty is more important than the actual content of the document[/QUOTE] He's already got a job according to the article, so he probably doesn't care all that much.

So one more useless person for the working class, cool.

I would be so fucked if I ever hard to do any of that fancy book learning. I don't think I ever managed to write anything in high school longer than 3 pages, and that was with padding, and messing with the font size and spacing.

[QUOTE=Zeke129;47408730]I'm pretty sure the PR he's getting from this will be more valuable in finding a job than any degree would be[/QUOTE] I hope so. That one's a tough sell. Still though, I support people studying what they enjoy and what they're good at. You only get to live once, and life is too damn short to give up on what you love to study finance and spend your days working for the bank and screwing poor people.

Incidentally, this is also the grade I would give his profile picture.

word to the wise there's a drug called amphetamine i guarantee you, you will finish that shit real quick

I don't want to diss him or his course or anything but not all fields let you pull an entire dissertation out of your ass. Philosophy is probably actually one of the very few that do.

[QUOTE=dookster;47408449]I may get a lot of dumbs for this but this kind of shit was what I hated about University. I'd bust my ass, spending months working on my project, giving up social time and sleep to be in the labs and I managed a 2:1 while people who do little to nothing or everything at the literal last minute were walking out with Firsts. I know it's not a perfect system but goddamn if it doesn't feel damn unfair sometimes.[/QUOTE] To be honest I'm amazed I even got a degree but the university knew about my depression so eh. But yeah I knew 2 people who absolutely slaved over their dissertations and got well below what they thought they would because they were long, rambling tomes. I think people mistake length and volume for a well structured, readable dissertation, the actual contents of my dissertation was shit but I presented it very well and somehow blagged about 50% for something I wouldn't even give 30.

[QUOTE=TheWhiteFox1;47408558]right "benefits that make it preferable to writing it over the course of the time given" works a bit better then[/QUOTE] For some people, yes. Waiting until last minute works for others. Some people write a lot better under the pressure of limited time. Some of my best papers were written the night before.

If you did this for a CS/Any science dissertation you would get absolutely fucked by the marker. Edit : Also why did this guy go public with this? I mean, good for him, but if i was an employer and i saw that i'd have second thoughts.

[QUOTE=Occlusion;47409120]If you did this in CS/Any science you would get absolutely fucked by the marker.[/QUOTE] Only on the single reference part. You could do nothing all year, lie during your meetings and do all the work in a week. 2:1 would be optimistic, but possible.

[QUOTE=Flapadar;47409130]Only on the single reference part. You could do nothing all year, lie during your meetings and do all the work in a week. 2:1 would be optimistic, but possible.[/QUOTE] Was just pointing out that sciences (my course at least) generally require some form of experimentation or end product (not always). Trying to do that in a week would be virtually impossible.

My best grades have been from last minute work. Any time I carefully plan out my assignments and work on them through the semester they end up being mediocre.

[QUOTE=Occlusion;47409149]Was just pointing out that sciences generally require some form of experimentation or end product (not always). Trying to do that in a week would be virtually impossible.[/QUOTE] If you know exactly what you're doing beforehand - it's possible to produce it in a week and pump out a report. There's at least one person in my class (honours year CS) doing that.

[QUOTE=Flapadar;47409157]If you know exactly what you're doing beforehand - it's possible to produce it in a week and pump out a report. There's at least one person in my class (honours year CS) doing that.[/QUOTE] If you know exactly what you're doing before hand you're not really doing it in a few days before.

That's how I prefer to do my work all the extra pressure helps keep me focused.

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;47408656]And yet it still won't save him from the fact that he majored in philosophy.[/QUOTE] except he already has a job soooo :^)

Majored in philosophy. Only place he'll get work is in ancient Greece.

[QUOTE=Flapadar;47409157]If you know exactly what you're doing beforehand - it's possible to produce it in a week and pump out a report. There's at least one person in my class (honours year CS) doing that.[/QUOTE] Possible with some things, not with others. If you're doing CS and your program takes several hours to produce results you can't shit it out in a couple of days because you'll have nowhere near enough cases to present, or really bad ones because you find out after a day or two's running time that something's broken.

[QUOTE=booster;47409301]Majored in philosophy. Only place he'll get work is in ancient Greece.[/QUOTE] Majoring in philosophy and stopping is like getting a getting your learners drivers license and never following up. Honours -> PhD is where its at.

Although I don't go to the extreme like this guy did, I do have a tendency to leave all major projects to the last minute. I don't know what exactly it is, but something kicks in when a deadline is coming up and I tend to produce better work when I seriously focus on something for eight hours rather than keep coming back to it every few days.

damn, I wish procastination was this kind to me.

College is mostly just finding ways to work the system by figuring out your professor and working towards how he grades papers. Of course if you put in effort you'll do good but you can find ways to do fine through clever bullshitting

That is some serious procrastination. Reminds me of how me and a buddy did a group final project for a class, for which we we're given the whole school year to work on, in a single week and we got an 18 out of 20. Was a crazy week.

I was once told that for each week I delay on my essay, I'll drop a grade

I can imagine the conversation of him handing in his paper. Guy: "I guess, this is my dissertation" Professor: "Homie this shit is basic, welcome to Graduation"

" Philosophy graduate" Yeah, try the same shit in any STEM field. I dare you.

[QUOTE=Impact1986;47410625]" Philosophy graduate" Yeah, try the same shit in any STEM field. I dare you.[/QUOTE] Apples and oranges.

I do this all the time and I'm still getting decent grades. (Unfortunately I'm an electronics engineering student so we do a final project instead of a dissertation, so I can't just do that in a couple of days)