Even if you are not a graduating senior, I am sure that you have heard of the devastating disease known to all high schoolers as “Senioritis.” Senioritis has been affecting thousands of seniors for decades, yet no cure has been found. One can catch it at any time during his/her final year of high school, and no one is immune.
If you are unsure of exactly what Senioritis is, let me clue you in. Some of the most common symptoms are: laziness, procrastination, lack of any motivation whatsoever, and extreme difficulty rolling out of bed in the morning. All of these symptoms can lead to grades taking a nosedive in the final weeks of high school, which is a cause for concern, as most colleges require prospective students to send in a final transcript. In other words, simply because the students have been admitted into college, their acceptance still is not a guarantee. Colleges have no sympathy for Senioritis victims; if the victims’ grades hit rock bottom by the end of the year, they could say goodbye to their offer of admission.
I know that I had to fight Senioritis. After my show choir trip to Missouri and after spring break, my motivation levels took a major hit. I often found myself bringing home my assignments with the intention of doing them, but they never seemed to find their way out of my backpack until very late at night, or sometimes not until the next day in the class before they were due. My “studying” for tests was a quick glance or two over my notes and nothing more. Basically, I did not make the best choices when it came to time management; naps were a higher priority than pretty much anything else.
How can you treat Senioritis? Well, there is not any guaranteed way to combat this terrible disease that afflicts many of us. Personally, I tried to start my homework much earlier than I normally would have to account for the time I knew I would spend being distracted from the homework by things that seemed much more fun than actual productivity. I also tried to focus on the fact that each assignment or project that I finished got me that much closer to the end of senior year—to graduation, to summer, and to college. No matter what I tried to do to defeat Senioritis, though, I still found myself affected by it every single day, and I knew that would continue until the bell rang on my very last day as a student of Onalaska High School.
No one is immune to Senioritis. The majority of my graduating class suffered from it, and the junior class will be facing the disease in only a matter of months. You might now think that you will never fall victim to the epidemic, but when you are in the final stretch of your high school career, you will certainly find yourself within its grasp. Now that you have been warned, you will have to do your best to combat the slippery slope of Senioritis.