One thing I discovered during decades of teaching at university. 18-year olds have little skill planning. Our first-year course had one-week assignments, but one more in-depth two-week assignment. This was at a time when students used computer labs, rather than their own equipment. During the first week of the bigger assignment, the labs were empty. About three days before the due date, the labs started getting busy. The night before the due date, students were waiting all night to get at a computer, and a delegation of students went to the Department Head to demand much bigger labs.

The following year, we used the same bigger assignment, but demanded that the students hand in the work for the first half of the assignment by the end of the first week (the markers were told just to check that it had been handed in, but not to mark it). Due date came along, and the overwhelming part of the class handed in acceptable work on time.

One thing that four years of university, perhaps including a study skills course, teaches you is how to manage multiple due dates with several concurrent projects in various stages of completion.