<p>Why do so many professors so strict about due dates? These profs devote tons of time to explaining how they don't tolerate anything submitted late, and it seems to please them just to think of how strict they are. Why turn it into such a point of contention? Isn't it just a given that they won't accept anything late?</p>
<p>People will come in here and say it prepares you for the cold, hard, miserable, wretched hell that is the real world, but punctuality is probably more important than deadlines IRL overall (and punctuality is also a pretty retarded thing to worry about if it's less than 20min, especially for white collar). </p>
<p>Bosses are strict about employees being late just like the professors do for late work. In the workplace, people easily make up BS excuses for why they missed a deadline. So if these professors suddenly want us to believe they're preparing us for RL, why do they all let kids come in 30 minutes late without consequence?</p>
<p>My teachers always told me that they didn't want late work because that would cause them extra work (assuming that you hand the paper in after they've graded all the others.) This would make the most sense for why they'd accept a 30min late paper, and not a day-late paper. </p>
<p>And punctuality is pretty important in the real world. No CEO is going to be too happy if you show up 20 mins late to a presentation that you should be giving. They went out of their way to show up, you should too (esp considering that you're giving the presentation.</p>
<p>It could also be a fairness thing. If everyone else is handing it in on the due time, shouldn't you be handing it in also? I mean that extra time might be an advantage depending on the assignment.</p>