Why Do Students Procrastinate in Taking FE Electrical and Computer Exam, and How Can They Avoid It?
Even the greatest minds in history have suffered from procrastination. Leonardo da Vinci delayed his Mona Lisa painting for over a decade and left it unfinished. Similarly, It took only two hours for Frank Lloyd to design Fallingwater after delaying it for around 9 months. But this is not something to get motivated or feel proudly relatable.
Procrastination not only impacts your study and career but also worsens your relationships and mental health. If you see these people succeed even with procrastination, they most likely fail in other aspects of life we are unaware of.
Procrastination is the unnecessary, deliberate, intentional process of delaying decisions or actions. It leads to poor choices, regrets, anxiety, depression, stress, and failure in different aspects of life. The problem is so prevalent that every 5th adult and every 2nd student complains about procrastination.
There are multiple reasons for procrastination in FE Electrical and Computer exams. Student procrastination is more prevalent in today’s generation due to instant access to various distractions. Although distractions contribute to a significant extent to procrastinating students, other social and psychological factors also lead to procrastination.
If you want to fix this problem, it is necessary to understand the primary factor driving your procrastinating habit. This blog post will help you uncover all the critical reasons for procrastination in FE Electrical and Computer exams to help you break this habit and stay focused on your FE exam preparation. Let’s dive deep into the details.
7 Reasons for Procrastination in FE Electrical and Computer Exam
Below are 7 top reasons for procrastination in FE Electrical and Computer exam that leads to prolonged delays and even unsuccessful PE exam attempts. You may share one or more than one reason for procrastination in FE Electrical and Computer exam, including:
- Fear of Unknown
- Slow Timebomb that Appears Innoxious
- Unclear starting point
- Lack of Exam Preparation Strategy
- Overwhelmed with the Preparation
- A Pool of Distractions
- Atychiphobia
Let’s find out where the actual problem lies.
1. Fear of Unknown
If you are studying for your FE exam and are confused about the outcome of your daily preparation routine or the entire exam, you’ll tend to leave your study table hoping that you will find the answer later.
It is the primary problem why students procrastinate. The fear of the unknown drives the desire in procrastinating students to delay their study or even dodge it. You can easily find out whether this is the case with your procrastination by answering a single question:
Do you delay your study until the night before your exam or assignment and are left with no room for preparation?
If your answer is yes, it means the fear of the unknown and uncertainty of outcome is one of the main reasons for procrastination in the FE Electrical and Computer exam. You are deliberately delaying to dodge the fear that only resides in your subconscious.
2. Slow Timebomb that Appears Innoxious
Experts claim that if you prolong your task completion deadline, you increase its complexity. For instance, if you have decided to appear in your FE exam and its deadline is far from now, you may find it hard to focus due to the lack of urgency and pressure.
This lack of urgency and pressure puts you at ease, and you become lazy with your FE exam preparation. You assume there is enough time to complete the course and forget that the timebomb is already ticking.
Do you like to delay your routine studies to the weekend and further delay it for the next week? If yes, then the lack of urgency is what’s causing you to procrastinate. It appears as if nothing will happen with some missed deadlines, but in reality, it’s increasing the complexity of your FE exam preparation.
If you are going unplanned with your preparation, in no time, you will start experiencing sudden urgency to complete the course with compromised preparation.
3. Unclear starting point
This is more specific and another form of fear of the unknown. If you don’t exactly know where to start your FE exam preparation, you begin delaying it recursively. The FE course outline is broad and lengthy, with many exam topics and domains. This comprehensive nature makes it difficult for the students to decide on the perfect starting point. Thus, students end up procrastinating.
4. Lack of Exam Preparation Strategy
A tactic without strategy is a noise before a disaster. If you start your FE exam preparation with a detailed strategy or preparation roadmap, you will complete the overwhelming FE exam course with a clear endpoint and direction.
If you don’t have a proper strategy, it will trigger your defense mechanism and you will start procrastinating as the easiest way to dodge the efforts. The human mind is a complex machine.
If I ask you to calculate 2 multiplied by 4, you will quickly answer with 8. But if you are asked to calculate 47 multiplied by 39 (without a calculator), you start figuring it out first but lose track in the middle of the calculation. You try to calculate it again, maybe 2 or 3 times.
But in the end, most readers will choose not to calculate and skip this portion to do it later or never. This is how you open the way for procrastination with a lack of strategy and an absence of a predefined roadmap with strict deadlines in your exam preparation.
5. Overwhelmed with the Preparation
Undoubtedly, the FE Electrical and Computer exam is very complex and time-consuming. Thinking about completing the entire course is itself nightmarish and makes you anxious. If you fall into the trap of focusing on your whole FE exam course at once, you will definitely be overwhelmed and burned out.
Think of a Mount Everest that you want to conquer. Overwhelming and complex, right? Even the best mountaineers in the world refrain from focusing on the summit. They just focus on completing their daily elevation gain with consistency. The same is the case with FE exam preparation. Focusing on the entire course at once is overwhelming.
Check out our perfectly structured FE Electrical and Computer exam online preparation course that involves multiple sections and sub-topics to help students not to overwhelm and remain focused on their preparation.
6. A Pool of Distractions
There are different perks as well as downsides to living in this digital era. With quick access to entertainment like Social Media, Netflix, Games, and whatnot, we are more prone to distractions compared to the previous generations. These distractions can be anything that pushes you into your comfort zone and allow you to relax and procrastinate on your FE exam preparation.
Apart from digital mediums, there are multiple reasons for distraction, including noise pollution, the burden of commitments, disturbed family system, relationship problems, etc. Now, this is your part to identify and list all distractions that are becoming one of the reasons for procrastination in the FE Electrical and Computer exam. Identifying the cause of your distraction is the prerequisite to curing this problem.
7. Atychiphobia
Atychiphobia is the Fear of Failure that limits you from taking action with uncertain outcomes. This is also another form of Fear of the Unknown. If you are trying to be an extra perfectionist with your FE exam preparation and you still feel unsatisfied with your preparation even after giving your best, you may be suffering from the fear of failure.
The fear is fueling your procrastination by making you delay your decision to start the preparation. You can procrastinate with your decision to appear in the exam even with full-fledged preparation because your brain is tricking you into thinking otherwise.
How to Overcome Procrastinating in Your Studying
Below are some proven tips for students to help them fix this issue and maximize their chances of success in their FE exam preparation by ensuring dedication and consistency.
- Break complex tasks into smaller and achievable milestones to avoid feeling overwhelmed.
- Don’t think about the outcome and focus on the task you must complete within an hour or a day.
- You are human, and humans are not perfect. Give yourself a little roam to commit mistakes and learn from your mistakes to avoid them in the final exam.
- Follow Urgent-Important Principal. Focus more on Urgent and Important tasks (that you need to define), delegate the urgent but not important ones, delay the important but not urgent ones, and cut the non-urgent and non-important burdens.
- Reward yourself (like eating your favorite chocolate) at the end of each milestone to turn your preparation into an exciting journey. Also, punish yourself a little for not meeting deadlines (like not having your favorite meal for a week).
- Eliminate all the potential distractions one by one. Go easy and slow with your elimination drive to lessen the withdrawal symptoms.
- Once you decide on doing something, stand firm with it and try to start it within 5 minutes of deciding to close doors for laziness and comfort zone.
- Scientifically, it takes only 10-15 minutes to enter the flow state while doing something with focus. Take the first step and adapt isolation to ensure focus. You might not be lacking focus but lacking solitude.
- Set milestones with an achievable but strict deadline. Try to set deadlines for each exam topic for better focus and urgency.
- Craft an effective exam preparation strategy and monitor your day-to-day progress critically.
- Identify your fears and practice overcoming them. If the problem is too complicated, it is recommended to seek help from a psychologist.
- Change it immediately if your environment is full of noise, demotivation, negativity, and distractions.
- Manage your time effectively and align your routine tasks following your exam preparation strategy and study calendar.
- Practice meditation and yoga to improve your focus.
- Self-assessment is the key to success if you master it. You can lie to anyone in this world except yourself. At the end of each day, question yourself did you give the best in your entire day, or if it was just an average day without any progress?
- If the condition exacerbates with every passing day or a month, consult a good psychologist immediately. Different underlying mental health issues like ADHD, Easily Distracted Syndrom, etc., must be identified and fixed immediately.
Conclusion
The reasons for procrastination in FE Electrical and Computer exam discussed above disrupt your preparation and negatively impact your social life. Therefore, it is necessary to identify the reason that turned you into a procrastinating student and take immediate action.
Start by changing your routine and habits. It takes time and effort, but with dedication, you will redirect yourself to the fast-paced and focused FE exam preparation. If you wanna make your study efforts even more worthwhile, make sure to check out our FE electrical exam tips and tricks guide.
Licensed Professional Engineer in Texas (PE), Florida (PE) and Ontario (P. Eng) with consulting experience in design, commissioning and plant engineering for clients in Energy, Mining and Infrastructure.