It’s around this time of year you start to notice something. You feel older, more accustomed to your position in the school food chain. School feels smaller somehow, like a whole class of students just seemed to fall silent, like they disappeared even. You’re not hallucinating, you’re witnessing the effects of senioritis.
Senioritis is an “illness” that most seniors catch during their second semester, as a majority have already been accepted and maybe decided where they are going to college. “Not only does senioritis cause me to be lazy and lack motivation,” senior Ali Silver said, “but senioritis is like trying to reach for the TV remote to change the channel but giving up and settling with what’s already on.”
If you’re a senior, this feeling is probably what you have been looking forward to having since you were a freshman. Suddenly, it’s almost as if your work does not matter at all. “It’s so much easier doing nothing when something means nothing,” senior Paul LaValle said.
It’s freeing, knowing that you’re approaching second semester, a time period where really your only requirement for graduating is showing up to your classes. But for freshmen, sophomores and juniors, senioritis is a virus you do not want to catch early.
I know firsthand that senioritis is contagious. My sister was a senior when I was a freshmen, so when she would come home and not do homework, I would come home and not do homework, assuming I could do what she did and still manage to get good grades. I was very wrong.
When my work ethic started to slip, so did my grades. I had to work twice as hard to get my grades back to where they were before I started slacking. If I learned anything from that epidemic, it’s that there are key ways to avoid catching senioritis.
One way to prevent yourself from becoming affected is to keep your head down and keep your workload in mind. See an Instagram pic of a senior using prime homework time to go downtown and get dinner? Ignore it. It may be hard to prevent yourself from wanting to do things like that instead of making flashcards for AP World, but they worked their way to having the privilege of embracing senioritis, and your time will come too.
Another (and possibly the most effective) method of prevention is working harder than you normally do in most of your classes when you notice yourself being distracted by senior activities. Rather than slipping up and slacking off, become more invested in your work, which will cause your grades to rise.
The last way to avoid catching senioritis is to set goals for yourself. You will feel more accomplished if you set expectations for your grades and scores and meet them.
Julia Stern
Social Media Director
