Every year, senioritis affects seniors. The lack of motivation, apathy and general lack of caring about school makes it hard to get through the final year of high school. It’s uncertain why senioritis happens; maybe it’s just because we’re ready to move on or maybe it’s because our brains know high school is ending and they are trying to make it easier for us to leave. Either way, the seniors this year have been hit hard with Covid and senioritis. 

The beginning of the year was hard to adjust to, with all the online and in person learning and the Covid guidelines we had to follow. Once we settled in, the senioritis hit. As a senior, I can attest to the fact that senioritis is, in fact, real and is a huge problem. The 11:59 p.m. deadlines no longer give me that feeling of anxiety they used to. Being late to class from lunch isn’t at the top of my list of worries. I have classmates who wake up 20 minutes before school starts and somehow make it to school on time. I also have classmates who, since getting accepted to college, stop caring about their grades because they feel as though they don’t have to worry about grades as much. Senior year is our transition between having a large load of schoolwork and having more when we go to college. That may be why so many seniors lose focus and motivation because we have already built our GPA’s and typically take easier classes to give ourselves a bit of a break. 

 Procrastination is also a big side effect of senioritis. I know some seniors who, in previous years, were always on top of their work but now wait until hours before the deadline to start their homework. We are so ready to move on to college or the workforce and start a new part of our lives that doing all of our schoolwork seems like a waste of time. Motivation has hit a new low, and it’s like pulling teeth every time we have to do an assignment outside of class. Our motivation is almost as low as it was during online school last year. Going remote for a week showed us a glimpse of how bad senioritis can really hit. Many students have said they didn’t do any work during that week because they simply had no motivation to do the work outside of school.  

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I doubt anyone has a surefire way to beat senioritis, so we seniors trudge along and try to make it through the year, hopefully without getting the ‘rona, and just making it through in general. We have to find the little things that keep us going, whether it be keeping grades up for sports or seeing our friends and favorite teachers every day. We just have to get through each day and each assignment in order to graduate and be able to move on from high school. Since the Covid vaccine has made its debut, maybe it’s time for someone to work on a Senioritis vaccine, since it is very contagious.