Every year, a pandemic sweeps the globe, utterly decimating millions of high school seniors. This incurable illness, otherwise known as senioritis, seems to indiscriminately plague seniors during their last semester of high school, and studies have shown it is contagious between close friends. Symptoms may include chronic procrastination, failure to complete homework, lack of studying for tests, excessive wear of sweats, Saturday school and overall apathy towards academics.
After submitting the final college application and seven semesters of high school, most seniors feel burned out. And when the fear of college rejections kicks in, many worry they will have nothing to show for their four years of studies. In some cases, this leads to diminished motivation—after all, there’s nothing you can do now to better your chances of admissions.
What we seniors have left is to make the best of our high school experience. For many of us, this means we choose to spend our last semester making memories with our friends before we go our separate ways instead of staying imprisoned within the confines of a classroom memorizing the periodic table. In most cases, this results in decreased attendance and increased bad decisions.
And although it may seem as if the only remedy for senioritis is graduation, I have found that a solid support group of teachers you don’t want to disappoint and a strong passion for your classes or extracurriculars may alleviate some of the symptoms. I cannot simply stop caring if I still care about my teachers, who tirelessly teach to a classroom full of uncooperative glassy-eyed students, or if I still care about the life I have built dedicating these last four years to journalism and running.
In track, the final 200m of a 1600m race is spent in an all out sprint. You are already exhausted from the previous 1400m you’ve run, but the final stretch is in sight, so you give it everything you’ve got left to finish off strong. These past four years have seemed like a 1600m race to me, with each lap being each year of high school: start off with a good effort, slowly build into it, give your best effort on the third lap and hang in there for the last 400m. Just because you are almost finished with your race, doesn’t mean you stop trying. If anything, you try even harder and don’t stop until you cross the finish line.
TCHS School Newspaper