Perhaps they should have gone somewhere else where they had time to sleep and think instead of just studying all the time. I know that where I work, the folks who are willing to grind the hardest on assigned work are rarely the ones you turn to for difficult and responsible work. The very best people are the ones who work extremely hard at self-directed work and sometimes push back against assigned work, but they are very, very rare, much rarer than people who are willing to grind day and night on whatever you assign them. The best person for difficult assignments is usually someone who refuses to overwork himself or herself.

I can't agree with this more. However, whenever I refuse to do work I get stamped on the forehead with "lazy". For example, I figure out that the homework in a class is 25% the grade but there are 25 of them, so each is worth 1%. I understand the topic so I figure that it's a waste of my 4 hours to do the work for 1% extra. Bam, "you're so lazy".

Keep dotting your i's and crossing your t's until you're out of school. Honestly, if you're above the work, you should blow through it without too much trouble. It's designed to be doable in a reasonable amount of time for someone who is in the same position as you except that they are just coming to terms with the material. You should be able to do it in half the time. If not, then you benefited from the practice.

Once you're doing real work, turning down work will not make you lazy; it will be an opportunity to say, "Sure, I might be able to assist you with that, but you will have to talk to <important person> and <other important person> about the impact on my work on <important project> and <other important project>."

"Oh... no chance of my project taking priority over those. Shoot, and I really need it done this quarter."

"I think <junior developer> can do the job for you. He might need a little guidance, but if he does, I will be happy to make myself available to answer his questions and point him in the right direction."

"Wonderful, thank you!"

Where does this lazy stamp actually land? Surely your school doesn't actually put a little (* lazy) on your transcript? You seem to know you're not lazy and there's no way the lazy stamp is actually going to be transmitted to anybody who cares, so why do you care?

Good point. I'm not too worried. I'm rather curious as to if I start prioritizing important things that need to be done vs things that can be postponed at work, am I going to suffer? I'm guessing the answer is yes.

Depends whose opinion on importance you're using for prioritization.

If you postpone things that aren't important to you, but are important to your boss, that's not going to go well. If you postpone things your boss doesn't care about, in order to do a better/quicker job on something the boss considers important, that'll probably make your boss happy.

(Note, I'm using "boss" as short-hand for "your boss, and all the other interested parties, customers, etc. who can affect your boss's opinion of you".)

Depends if they are paying you to prioritize. If they're paying you to do what you're told and you don't, that doesn't usually end well. If you're responsible for priorities, you just have to never screw up, that's all.

Just think: Completing a pointless assignment will, by definition, provide zero benefit to anybody. Watching TV also provides little benefit. Hence, completing that assignment is at least as lazy as watching TV.

[Actually watching TV does provide a benefit: it's relaxing. The same is not true for assignments.]

So what if they call you lazy? Are you going to stop getting invited to the parties they are too busy studying to go to?

Personally I found Dartmouth GPAs correlated to how often you went to class and how much attention you paid to the lecture. If you didn't go or zoned out, you'd be working all day and all night just to catch up on that 1 hour you missed.