Seniors this year have been facing two pandemics, a literal one and a figurative one. While school adjusts to COVID-19, another well-known disease is spreading: senioritis.
Senioritis has plagued seniors for generations and has caused seniors to lose motivation in school. Since this disease spreads through negativity, this year’s strain of the virus has the capacity to be devastating.
This year, students are dealing with a hybrid schedule which can cause them to be unproductive on their off-days. Students struggling with unproductivity combined with the difficulties of online learning has caused a huge spike in failing grades. The frustrations caused by these complications and the resulting failing grades are only feeding the negativity spreading senioritis.
These very problems have caused Senior James Breen to become disenchanted with school. “It’s really easy for me to put something off until later now that I have much more time at home. In addition, I struggle with a mindset that I’ll be able to do everything on my off-days, but then struggle to get anything done once an off-day arrives,” Breen commented.
Breen has also struggled to justify caring about most of his classes. “I would say that I half-care about my schoolwork. I say this because I know that my grades still impact the rest of my school life, but I struggle to care beyond that,” Breen said.
Senior Alex Knaack has also been battling senioritis. “It’s difficult because I do still care about my grades because I want to keep a high GPA for college applications, but I also don’t ever want to do the required work at home because of the amount,” Knaack explained. “I always wind up guiltily procrastinating,” Knaack continued.
With the negativity encompassing this school year, senioritis could spread at an alarming rate. Some students, like Breen and Knaack, struggle to find motivation. If schools cannot find some way to combat the growing amounts of negativity, either by reworking how they approach the things contributing to the problem or finding ways to inject more positivity into the student body, senioritis may become yet another pandemic students will have to battle.
