by Emi C.
Every teacher's reaction when they hear “senioritis” is followed by a complaint or sigh in annoyance. The common belief is that it's the excuse to slack off during their senior year and be lazy. It is an excuse, but at the same time it's not.
“Senioritis is more of the excitement to be out into the real world and have a little more freedom, opposed to a lack of motivation” a high school senior reported in FHNtoday, a high school publication By the time high school seniors reach the final year of their schooling, the stress and burnout can be hard to manage. “The incredible lack of motivation to do any work is beyond real, it feels almost like a cage, a prison, not school itself, but your own mind,” therefore proving the difficulty kids face in their final year of schooling
The MRHS community had something to say about senioritis and its possibilities. Emma M, a senior, does not “necessarily believe in senioritis, although I do believe in burnout.” Emma thinks senioritis is more closely related to burnout, and while it might afflict seniors more, it isn’t “exclusive to seniors.”
Mrs. Sutphin, an MRHS English teacher, further agrees and doesn’t “teach seniors and the sole reason I don’t want to is that they blame everything on senioritis.” As a student, it can become stressful moving into being an adult and having high school almost over: all twelve years of schooling. With school, it’s so easy to use an excuse knowing you’ll get away with it with the end so near, but that doesn’t make lack of motivation exclusive to seniors.
Jessie J., a senior, believes differently though. He attests to senioritis being real, “Whether it's a different name for burnout…with similar symptoms.” Further touching on the point of being so close to the end, between your mental health and the workload you carry, it just builds up over time. Overall, the common consensus between all the seniors interviewed though is that while senioritis is, or isn’t a thing, the lack of motivation or even being burned out is not unique to just seniors.
With the thought that senioritis being used as an ‘excuse’, Mrs. Sutphin points out that “Students just push through things they don’t want to do or are stressful because they don’t have something like senioritis as a reason to fall back on.” Truthfully, she has a point. How many assignments have you skipped doing because you had an excuse? How many tasks did you push off until the last minute, or ignore because you came up with a reason better to ignore it then actually do it?
While there are many components to this ‘senioritis,’ most use it as an excuse to slide through their last year. Not having motivation to do work can be blamed as senioritis, but it can also be a sign of being burnt out. Senioritis is just another long list of excuses, renamed, whether you believe in its truth or not.