At least in linguistics, you never have to hand in papers by the end of the quarter. If you don't, you're in the realm of the incomplete. If you take a grade of `I', you have up to one year to finish the coursework. However, many experienced people think it's better to drop classes than take incompletes, since they're like an albatross. Jon Barwise: ``The incomplete is a course grade designed to seduce unsuspecting students into postponing the writing of their dissertation, sometimes forever. It is especially devastating when combined with the quarter system, and the need to write papers in almost every course. You should take an incomplete only in the direst of circumstances.'' That said, few people actually take this advice.