All Nighters

So, i'm assuming that most of you are college students.
And as such you are probably forced to do the occasional, (or freq if major == X.enginering)
So whats your plan of action when you have to do so? How do you guarentee that you will both be able to
work effectively and be able to stay awake the next day?
Myself, I make sure to drink a cup of coffee every 2 hrs, and eat food constantly. I've found that this is guaranteed to keep me awake for at least 50 hrs when neccessary. And if programming, which is usually the case, I listen to music that has alot of energy, punk, metal, happyHardcore, NRG, etc...
I also usually take a break few hour or so for a few minutes to dick around online and get away from what I'm doing. for example, im writing this absolutely useless post..
Anyways, what do the lot of you do?

damn, try being an animation student. i had to go 4 days straight a couple times in addition to the regular 24-48 hour bouts with out sleep. i don't have any secrets other than just keep going. if you stop or really slow down u'll fall asleep or have a hard time getting your mind back up. and if i really got bad and just couldn't keep my eyes open i would work standing up or pacing if i could.

I've done four days once, studying for finals a few years back and shit got weird after the third day, I started seeing shadow figures in my periphery as well as hearing sounds when I was alone and in a silent environment, it was scary, nothings like pleasant halucinations, it was scary.
Pacing is a great idea, im jealous that you have that option available to you.

ahhh all niter as in study

lol i got the wrong idea, for a party all niter its easy, good friends, good chicks, good drinks

all nighters for study someone else will have to answer

Starting my 4th year of engineering have never done an all nighter.

ur kidding, where do you go to skool? what major?

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Originally posted by: Cal_kashi
I've done four days once, studying for finals a few years back and shit got weird after the third day, I started seeing shadow figures in my periphery as well as hearing sounds when I was alone and in a silent environment, it was scary, nothings like pleasant halucinations, it was scary.
Pacing is a great idea, im jealous that you have that option available to you.

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Whoa, I'm not the only one! I was extremely stressed and sleep deprived last year at one point (probably a natural consequence of taking 7 engineering courses and having two major lab reports due right in the middle of exams) and I hallucinated like shadowy bugs/spiders. It was one of the freakiest things that's ever happened to me. At one point, I was so convinced there was a giant spider in my room that I got one of my housemates to come look for it. Then I realized that I'd been hallucinating.

I don't drink coffee, so I need to find other things to keep me awake. Food for sure works well. I used to drink vanilla coke to keep me awake too until I had a bad experience with drinking too much vanilla coke at once after not consuming any caffeine for a month. In the past year or so I've started powernapping too. Sometimes, I just can't figure out the answers to assignment questions at night if I keep working on them. But if I sleep for a few hours then get up early in the morning to continue, my mind works better and I can get more accomplished. Of course, that also brings the deadline much closer and takes away all the buffer time, but more often than not it pays off for me. Likewise, I also surf around my favourite websites once every hour or so to break the monotony.

The last thing I want to do is sound patronizing, or act like I know it all, but surely if you manage your time effectively you won't need to do all-nighters for study...

I know, I know, people have to work, go out, etc. Somehow I managed to do fine while I was at Uni, fitting everything in effectively. Then again, I was living at home at the time so I guess that means I had fewer daily tasks.

I heard that cramming the day before finals is supposedly bad for you. But I guess some people's studying methods are like that and they can't change since they are used to it already. Whatever works best for them I guess. Drink energy drinks, like Red Bull. JUST 1 DONT DRINK MORE THAN ONE OR YOU WILL DIE. I'm in engineering too and I can see next that next week I'll be doing the same, yikes =/

Red Bull, Bah, the little market adjacent to the ME and CS buildings sells this stuff called BOOKOO, its 2 bucks, 24 oz and has the saem caffiene per oz, ie 80mgish / 8oz as redbull.

CmDR_RavEn: I envy what you accomplished. I pretty much awaken -> read -> class -> lab -> read -> sleep, every day, and still am forced to do this shit at least twice a month, more when midterms, finals and projects are due. Also, In the last year and a half, I've never had a programming project that could be done in less than about 96 hrs of coding... *grumble*...

edit: w/ re: to cramming the night before a test, I have discovered that it will help a great deal for that test, but as soon as you wake up the following day you will remember NOTHING that you had studied.

I've never done more than 3 hours of studying at a time, but I've done a day and a half without sleep while playing poker.

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Originally posted by: ChiaCheese
damn, try being an animation student. i had to go 4 days straight a couple times in addition to the regular 24-48 hour bouts with out sleep. i don't have any secrets other than just keep going. if you stop or really slow down u'll fall asleep or have a hard time getting your mind back up. and if i really got bad and just couldn't keep my eyes open i would work standing up or pacing if i could.

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Is it really that bad? Why is being an animation student so stressful?

I'm just asking because it's something I looked into, but never decided on (partially 'cause I heard stuff like this). Right now I'm just a liberal arts major, so I haven't had to stay up more than 24 hours yet. Which almost makes me feel like I'm not working hard, listening to these other stories...

any animation's a bitch. my ex took a computer animation course and it wasn't about just having a good eye. you really had to know your vector math and matrices =P which is why i'm so enamoured with pixar. mad props to u chia for being an animation student. despite the your non-sleeping marathons, do you love what you do?

i wonder how many of were/are engineering majors. i studied electrical (DSP concentration) in my undergrad and never pulled more than one all niter per semester. but when i did, i just plowed through it with sheer force of will. drinking coffee, for some reason, put me to sleep faster than w/o [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-tongue.gif[/img]

I've done all-nighters, but they're not worth it IMO. What you might gain in extra studying is lost to sleep deprivation. If you're too tired you don't perform nearly as well. You're slow, easily distracted, and not as logical. If you've got a test coming up it's best to get a good night's sleep and eat a big breakfast so you have the energy and focus to make it through the exam.

never had to pull any all-nighters for my multimedia courses....although alot of people did find that lightwave animation course we had to be quite demanding. Luckily i only had like, 4 relatively easy classes for that semester

Then again, it also helped that I've taught myself 3d studio for the past 6 years

I am with Basey on this one.

I never really studied that much, I don't studying for prolonged periods of time is a good thing. There should be breaks in between, and good rest, otherwise I think it would be a waste, and I'd forget what I was doing on the thing before, heh.

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Originally posted by: Mae
I've done all-nighters, but they're not worth it IMO. What you might gain in extra studying is lost to sleep deprivation. If you're too tired you don't perform nearly as well. You're slow, easily distracted, and not as logical. If you've got a test coming up it's best to get a good night's sleep and eat a big breakfast so you have the energy and focus to make it through the exam.

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Yeah I agree, I end up forgeting most of it the next day anyway. I think studying 3-4 hours before the exam works best when you need to memorize a shitload of stuff.

lol you people are forced to stay awake all night to finish your studies? Where do you live, in slave camps?

I finish my work during the day. I stay up all night to do music editing, anime watching, and talk to you people [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-tongue.gif[/img]

I would agree that often studying through a night may not be beneficial, but occasionally in large programming projects, sometimes it has to be done. Especially when working in a group, and on that note, I haven't found that my ability to code diminishes w/ lack of sleep (as long as I stay energized). Yet, verily you ask what would demand this sort of suffering... I'll give an example. I was working in a class on Computer Architecture, (taught by Dave Patterson for those in the know) where the class was split into 5 groups of 5 and we had 13 wks to design and build a cpu on an FPGA. When the final checkoffs neared, my group (along with several others) lived on the lab for a week and a half, forsaking all other classes and working probably about 18 hrs a day (I swear its not a fucking exaggeration). We would break to eat, usually sleep in the lab, and occasionally retreat home for a few hours of sleep before returning to the Hell that had become our all encompassing objective to finish the project. By the end of about seven straight days of this the lab took on quite a party like atmosphere and everyone retained the ability to code their particular part, but not really do anything else usefull.