Senioritis, a term all high school students and teachers have heard at some point in their high school career. The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines the term senioritis as an ebbing of motivation and effort by school seniors as evidenced by tardiness, absences, and lower grades.”

Basically, it’s a lack of effort being put into school as seniors reach graduation, and let me tell you, it’s real and my classmates and I have caught a real bad case of it.

You see, every senior says they’re not going to succumb to the “disease,” but let’s face it, it’s inevitable. There are many factors that play into this downfall of our motivation towards school and it starts during our junior year, a year we are told is the most important of all of high school years and one that will be one of the main factors of college admission decisions. I remember it like it was yesterday. Many juniors didn’t have it like we did.

I remember starting and completing my junior year inside my bedroom on Zoom rather than in a classroom. During COVID-19, I had the best work ethic I feel I’ve ever had in high school. I worked my butt off throughout the year and got all my work done early and on time. I’ll never forget submitting my last final and celebrating all summer that my “hardest” year of high school was over. Then came the fall semester of my senior year.

Back in person, I expected to have even more motivation than I did online, especially when it came to applying for college. However, I was already feeling the effects of senioritis. I was still getting my work done, but I was already feeling the lack of motivation to put my all in. I thought it was normal because I was balancing my college applications. I noticed as soon as I turned in my final application in December that senioritis was creeping into our lives. And by the spring, when colleges were sending out decisions, it was in full swing. People had fully stopped doing homework, and paying attention in, let alone showing up to classes, and even stopped really caring about anything going on in school. The mindset of a senior in high school had shifted into a “alright, let me graduate and get out of here” mindset.

This mindset comes from the exhaustion of all the work we had put in the year and a half before. All the studying, honors, AP courses, and tests taken, sleepless nights working on assessments and finals passed to get to where we are now and will be in the future. Although it was hard, I have seen the list of schools where my peers and myself are planning to attend come fall and the work has definitely paid off.

Although it may seem inevitable, it does not have to be a part of a senior’s “senior experience.” See, as long as you remain focused, determined, motivated and not let the laziness of others rub off on you, you can continue and finish the year off as strong as you started, or even better. This is only the beginning. The road ahead seems scary and will not be easy, but I know with the right mindset and determination, which the ARHS Class of 2022 has shown previously, the sky’s the limit