Navigating academia

I admit it: I just need a place to complain in a space where people will probably understand.

I’m working on my doctorate. A few weeks ago, I turned in something that’s one of the milestones on the way to completing my degree. I had some say in the deadline, and I scheduled it so it wouldn’t conflict with the HHDs.

I got feedback about a week later saying I’d done it wrong and was given about a week extra to fix it. The original instructions were vague, and the clarification I got didn’t really help, but I fixed it the best way I knew how and got it turned in.

Then I suddenly get a message saying something in it needs to be fixed and I have until tomorrow evening to fix it and re-re-submit it…

Like…the answer is no. Rosh HaShana starts tomorrow at sundown, and I usually take Fridays off anyway to prep for Shabbat. I don’t have time for this. All of the other work I had already meticulously scheduled to be done by today had to be pushed back to the end of September because of the unexpected week-long side quest of re-submitting the first time.

I appreciate the opportunities to show my work, but the constant, very random deadlines that assume there’s no reason I should be able to “get this to [me] by tomorrow” with no issue is appalling.

I’m already letting other people down because of constantly having to go back and “fix” these responses. The quality of my work is literally slipping in other areas.

Even if it weren’t Rosh HaShana, what if I had a doctor’s appointment tomorrow? Or a meeting? What if I had literally anything that took forever to plan for and can’t be rescheduled? What if I were sick or otherwise in a state/situation where I couldn’t work and complete something on such short notice?

This is literally the third time that I have rescheduled almost my entire life around this one assignment: classes and their assignments, research, manuscripts for my advisor, planning and prepping for the holidays. Literally just this morning, I scheduled it all out (to the hour) in a way that makes getting everything done possible (albeit not much wiggle room).

And then, between one blink and the next, I have like 12 hours—the final 12 hours before Rosh HaShana starts—to complete this project that I’ve already submitted twice over?

It isn’t a time management issue, on my part. I really would admit it, if it were. But there just aren’t enough hours in a day to do these things. I tried my best to schedule everything so they wouldn’t overlap and interfere with one another.

I’m just at the point where I’m, like….no. I won’t get this back to you by tomorrow evening. I have other things I need to do. Namely, religious observance.