Surviving Senior Year of High School

Kindergarten was easy after a few weeks of getting accustomed to being away from Mom all day. Elementary was all about making projects and learning to write neatly in cursive. Then came junior high and it was suddenly all about friends and social standing. Finally high school arrived and then came the excitement of driver's ed, getting a car, proms, and dating. After what seemed like a lifetime of classes, teachers, demerits, and detentions you finally reach the coveted Senior Year! You get to first semester thinking you're big and bad because you're in 12th grade. You figure you can sit back and make fun of freshmen as you cruise through your classload and party with your friends. Then comes the semester break, and you're halfway there!

You come back from an awesome break, and you are in the homestretch. So you've finally made it to the last few months of high school, but suddenly there's a strange disease creeping up that makes your brain turn to mush and your motivation disappear... it's called "senioritus"...

Senioritus can strike at the oddest moments. Suddenly the classes you used to pay attention in aren't as exciting. Assignments that used to get prepared the night before are scribbled in the five minutes before class. If it gets really serious grades can be affected and people have even been known to dropout in severe cases.

There are ways to avoid this condition if proper steps are taken early enough. Identifying it is easy enough by checking for the following symptoms:

1. Lack of interest in any class, even classes which previously prompted interest.

2. Lack of enthusiasm in anything school related.

3. Procrastination on assignments.

4. Skipping classes on a regular basis for no particular reason.

5. Lack of participation in class.

6. Previously strong academic student becomes more interested in just "having fun."

If you or someone you know is experiencing more than two of these symptoms and just happens to be a high school senior, he or she may have "senioritus." It's a sad thing, but don't despair. There are ways to combat its effects and finish strong.

The most important way to avoid getting infected with senioritus is to remember what is waiting at the end. Graduation is a time to reward those who stayed strong the whole time. It's not easy to stay focused when you know it's almost over, and you can't wait to graduate, but holding on the last three months is worth the effort. Keep the future in mind. If you're collegebound the next fall, you'll be a lot better off if you ended high school well, than if you goofed off the last semester. Even if you're just going to find a job in town after graduation, it will look better for you if your grades didn't do a fourth quarter dive into D's and F's.

No matter how much you want to just stay up late and party with your friends, no matter how enticing the 2nd hour nap sounds, stick out the last few months. Finish what you started. You don't have to study day and night, but put in the effort to make it through. Then senioritus will never get the best of you. You too can survive this and get out with grades unscathed. So, go study!