That’s right, Seniors! Spring time has finally sprung and senior year is coming to an end. These last few months are bittersweet and there are many things that are happening all at once. College acceptances, college visits, parties, prom, and hanging out with your close ones for the very last time.
However, seniors are so eager to graduate, they’ve forgotten about their responsibilities and how its their accountability that has gotten them to where they are now: in college. “I don’t even have a backpack,” said senior Patrick Mandeville.
If you don’t even have a bag to bring to school, this can quickly be categorized under what is called senioritis, what students define as a crippling disease that strikes high school seniors. Symptoms include: laziness and wearing an over excessive amount of track pants and old athletic shirts. This disease also features a lack of studying, repeated absences, and a generally dismissive attitude. The only known cure is the phenomenon known as graduation.
“Senioritis is waking up and counting down your absences to see whether or not you should come to school,” said Nicholas Circelli (’12). Life as a senior is so difficult and tedious to the point that it almost becomes natural to easily throw away of all your responsibilities. But have no fear, here are some ways to beat senioritis so you can end your year on a good note and with an A!
Stay organized, stay focused, and stay sane
Often times students bags are a mess, filled with loose papers and missing caps from pens. It’s important to hold onto that binder you had from September and to tighten up those papers in there. Do not stuff them in your bag when the bell rings because it will get lost. Try your best to keep those eyes open. Although it will feel like late nights and early mornings are your schedule on the regular due to the fact that as a senior your sleeping cycle is off, staying focused is the number one key. Pay attention in class so you can pass your tests and quizzes. Get enough sleep, eat a healthy breakfast (getting enough protein) and repeat a quick and motivational mantra to yourself before getting out of bed. It will help you stay in control of your thoughts so that you won’t be stressed out when making up for all those missing assignments at the end of the quarter.
Make grades your best friend
Colleges will always check your final transcripts especially if you have a scholarships based on your GPA or for a given sport. Believe it or not, those scholarships can be taken away from you. Think about it this way, if you got an acceptance letter, that’s great, but there’s always another student behind you waiting for your position. Hence, you wouldn’t want to give that up because you didn’t finish that one essay or you didn’t bother to go get your test corrections in. “If you got accepted in March, you got accepted statistically with the expectation of your GPA most likely going down. Keep your GPA up and then write them in June with a letter asking if they have anymore money, for keeping up your hard work in high school. Who knows if that money can go towards anything, it’s beneficial,” said social studies teacher Mr. Mazza. All you have to do is put your grades first, force yourself to get to your laptop and put the remote away, and do what you got to do in order to keep your grades up because who knows if something great will come out of it.
Think ahead
Don’t do things last minute, it’s not worth it! If you have college applications to get done, finish them! Have a planner and write down all of the tasks, events, and situations going on in your life at the time. If you have a study hall or a free day, finish anything. On weekends while working out or relaxing by the beach, go over those math equations until your brain says enough is enough. Distractions are useless and you will feel bad if you didn’t get that homework done last night.
Have a motivational buddy
Even though senior year is stressful and we always seem to give up, it’s good to have a buddy who hasn’t been affected by this. It’s good to have a friend who is there to catch you, talk out any situations with, and help you in anyway they can. Make sure you also have that friend who is willing to go to that last football game, last prom, or last everything with you also because it’s okay to have a healthy amount of fun. Just promise each other that you will be able to hand in and submit simple assignments. Make a deal or even a bet, just motivate one another.
Remember what you worked hard for
You got so far! You really did, you set these goals to get to the top and you’re finally here. You didn’t finish the race yet, you only finish the race when that piece of paper with your name on it is printed finely and it’s in your hand. Procrastination is like carbs, you want them or are tempted to do it, but you don’t need them and shoudn’t do it. “In order to make your freshmen year of college the most academically successful it can be , consider your senior year as a preseason of college, not as your senior year of high school,” said math teacher Mr. Weintraub. Erase the mentality of “it will never happen to you,” because it will, and you need to start thinking like an adult. Fight this off like a pro and think about your future by asking yourself questions like “where would you be in five years from now?”
Don’t be so hard on yourself
Just breathe! Besides waking up in the morning, it’s also hard to be yourself around this time in your life. Don’t worry, everything will go as it was planned and if it doesn’t, it just wasn’t meant to be and that’s okay. Senioritis is a mindset and state of stress where you need to remind yourself that you can do it, if you just put your mind to it. In conclusion, congratulations to seniors who’ve made it this far (class of 2016), it was quite a journey, but you can finish the academic race one last time.
