The Epidemic of Senioritis

By Colin Messinger

Recently the 29th of January rolled around. That may seem like an arbitrary date; however, it held a bit more significance to students. It was the first day of third term. For underclassmen that is a halfway point but for seniors it's pretty much the finish line. For many of us it’s time to give up. It is now officially senioritis season. Most adults try to write off senioritis as just lazy high school kids who don’t want to do work, but it is so much more. Senioritis is a disease that affects millions of kids nationwide, a disease for which there is no cure. So many students deal with the sinking reality that all of their motivation in life and in school vanished as they sat down in homeroom Monday morning. The finish line may not be quite here yet but that won’t stop us from giving up. But what causes senioritis? Why do so many teenagers just give up at the same exact time? To figure out I talked to people I know who are living with the disease.

David Noone was the first person that I talked to. He has actually been dealing with senioritis for much longer than most people. In fact, he says that he started experiencing symptoms two years ago. “Sophomore year was when I kinda tapered off, started doing less work and missing more school.” On the note of missing more school he added that he is in school for a full day “almost never” and that it is “50/50 whether I come in on time, then another 50/50 whether I leave before the end of the day.”

That may actually be the worst case of senioritis I have ever seen. I actually interviewed David in the cafe during first period while he was supposed to be in Street law but after signing in he left and just never went back.

Given this final piece of information I would say that all the signs in Dave’s case point toward full blown stage four terminal senioritis. There is no chance of him getting better and what little effort he puts in now will only continue to be sapped away as term three drags on. Who knows if he’ll even be able to muster the effort to get his diploma. The ramp up to the stage is quite steep.

The next kid that I talked to was Jude Albert. Jude has decided to go into the Navy and with that decision came the realization that his grades were about to fall off a cliff. He phrased it as “people starting to check out.” To be honest I love it; he has his plan all set, and that’s it. Jude has his eyes on the prize, and right now the prize is a chill senior year. I don’t think much more can be asked of him. He has a goal and he’s going for it.

One of the most shocking diagnoses of senioritis this year was my own. Anyone who even vaguely knows me is very aware of the fact that I am a huge nerd. I do my homework, study, pay attention, and raise my hand. I have done extensive math on the 8 trillion rats vs Jupiter argument and in depth research on whether or not a refrigerator is a heater. But when I walked through the doors of the glass hallway on Monday I knew that it was over. Pretty soon I’ll be trading in my backpack for a drawstring bag and bumming sheets of paper, like cigarettes, from people who still try. The paper will be pretty useless though because I doubt I’ll keep any pencils in the backpack that I don’t have. My case is progressing very quickly; my doctor actually told me that I shouldn’t even be writing this because it's using up too much of the limited effort I have left. The tank is almost empty, the gas light is on, and this article is like a tweet that is getting dangerously too long. But instead of characters I’m running out of motiva…