As high school comes to an end very soon, seniors are about to be done with high school for good. However, many are finding that there is something that might be making it hard for them to find motivation to finish. That is called senioritis.
While senioritis may not be a real illness, it is still something that hits seniors at the end of the year. For some seniors, it may even start at the beginning of the year. According to Rylie Woodward (12), she felt senioritis since September, but for Naia Banderman (12), she had it start last month.
It’s not a new thing for teachers to see this illness pop up at the end of the seniors’ year, but it also does not only hit seniors, as it can hit their grades as well.
“Sometimes, depending on the student, I will see senioritis even before senior year. Sometimes students kind of come into high school or by their sophomore or junior year [get it],” English teacher Sarah Petroff said. “They are kind of over it and thinking ahead of wanting to be done with school, so definitely I see it.”
For both teachers and students, senioritis can make classes harder.
“I feel like once I got it, the classes just started pushing more, so then I’m kind of falling behind in some classes,” Banderman said, “but some I’m sticking with it, but it’s definitely hard.”
Some students, however, are trying to overcome this by pushing through to end the year strong.
“I just tried to motivate myself every single day to do better,” Woodward said.
As the teachers see this, they are trying to motivate their students to finish the year on a high note as well.
“First of all, teaching is always hard to get the kids to care about what they’re learning. But I think especially when they’re already checked out mentally, I think it’s just hard to teach them the important things,” Petroff said. “And, you know, the irony is at the end of the year, it’s finals, and so often we do some of our most important stuff at the end of the year, so the more they’re checked out, the less well they do on those final projects or essays.”
With OHS working through its final few weeks, senioritis may be weighing students down, but many of them aren’t trying to hide this.
“I think one of the things I enjoy about students right now is they are willing to be open and honest with you, and with my current students, they’ll be very honest about their senioritis,” Petroff said, “ and I think, you know, acceptance is the first step…”
