Around March every year (or earlier), all seniors share one common illness: senioritis. As a matter of fact, my senioritis is on full blast while writing this article, so just hang on while reading. Senioritis is the most serious academic illness a student can catch. Is it contagious? Yes. My friends and I are extremely burnt out. The good news is that you’re cured by graduation day! And then all you do after is talk about your “high school days” as if you just didn’t dread walking through the doors a few weeks ago. The real mystery, however, is why does an entire senior class catch this same sickness  every year? 

Senioritis: an ebbing of motivation and effort by school seniors as evidenced by tardiness, absences, and lower grades (Miriam-Webster Dictionary). 

Senioritis can have many forms. For example, we have absences. The absence side effect is mainly due to lack of sleep. Our first class of the day is around 7:30 am, and nobody wants to wake up earlier than that.  We also have the low grades side effect, which is due to not caring anymore; if I already got into college, why do I still have to do homework for Economics? Lastly, we have tardiness. Why is tardiness even a thing? At least we showed up, we don’t even want to be here. 

Anyways, the more important factor of this article is figuring out why an entire grade of students fall victim to this disgusting contagion. Due to my intense, groundbreaking research that I’ve formed within the last couple of seconds, I found the answer: Lack of Motivation. All of the side effects we seniors experience are from us being burnt out and our severe Lack of Motivation. But how come the teachers don’t experience their own form of senioritis by the end of the year? The answer is simple: it’s their job. 

With that all being said, as tempting as it is to fall into the senioritis cycle, DON’T. As burnt out as we are, we are so close to graduation day, seniors. Look at how far we’ve come; we only had one full year of high school (as of right now) since we were small freshmen in the hallways, and we need to finish out strong. Do not let this serious illness ruin what you have left of senior year. Remember, when you start something, it’s really important to 

* photo via Google Images under the Creative Commons license