Newsworthy

If you want to find out more about Senioritis and ways to combat it, I've found these following websites give sound advice.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1191831,00.html

http://www.nacacnet.org/studentinfo/articles/Pages/Senioritis.aspx

http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2011/11/18/5-tips-to-battle-college-senioritis

And this is just a link to the definition of Senioritis as it appears in Merriam-Webster online. I included it because I found the act of putting a simple lack of motivation into lofty speech was rather comical. 

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/senioritis

Twitter is Infected

Throughout exams I wondered how tweets such as " #studying ", actually resembled studying in any way, shape, or form. It seemed people enjoyed tweeting about how much they hated studying more than they enjoyed the act of studying. I also noticed the insane number of favorites each tweet about how hard "studying" was, and so after exams were over I was not entirely surprised to discover my Twitter feed infested with hashtags such as #senioritis and #secondsemestersenior.

Here's an example of Twitter on any given day in the second semester. 

Count Me Out of Calculus

To make a long story short during my Calculus exam we were given the wrong time constraints and so when the bell rang to signify the exam was over, many girls including myself were startled and confused. We informed our teacher of the mistake and he gave us an extra half an hour to complete the exam forty-five minutes after we were to finish our english exam. 

When the english exam was over my friends and I were casually sitting in the senior lounge, bitter about the fact that we had to stay after testing to complete another exam. We were talking about how hard the test was and how we all thought we failed, and yet our Calculus notes were inches away from us in our lockers, a fact that was openly acknowledged by numerous seniors. I do not know whether that would have been a breech of our honor code, although I'm guessing it would be, but that is irrelevant anyway since the truth of the matter was each and every one of us were simply too lazy to look over the material on the Calculus exam. Keep in mind that we even knew the questions being asked, and somehow sitting on the couches drinking hot chocolate and discussing the difficulty of the exam was more appealing than studying for it. 

A Trip to the Library

Remind me never again to use the self check-out at the Giant. It is by far the most stressful endeavor I have endured. It all started on a Wednesday after school when my friends and I decided to be studious and make a trip to Bethesda Library to prepare for the last day of exams: religion and science.

Immediately upon arriving we decided that in order to better learn the material, we needed some brain food. That is when my friend and I left the library to go to Giant. At Giant I bought four large bags of Sour Patch Kids and a case of Red Bull because we were all in need of a some wings. The self checkout line took me a total of twenty five minutes to endure and there was a very irritated man standing behind me the entire time.

After that catastrophe my friend and I returned to our private room in the library and began studying. There was more material in religion than we expected and so we studied for five hours straight until the library closed. It was wonderful and all until we realized that arguably the hardest exam yet, the physics exam, still remained and we had not studied for it. The remaining hours of that night were long and painful, but we both pulled all-nighters in hopes that it would turn out for the best. It rarely does.

Class Encouragement

There's nothing like some good encouragement from classmates when studying for exams, right? These are two examples of fine encouragement displayed by two of my classmates in our 2013 Senior Facebook Group. 

I laughed, especially since this was coming from a class president.

I enjoyed this one, but it made me want to watch the Hunger Games instead of crack open my textbooks. 

Strength in Numbers

I used to think Senioritis was a disease that came after being accepted into college. Once seniors know they have a place to go after high school, they feel as though they do not need to work as hard. This is partially true, however, the generalization was not completely adding up because I have friends who knew where they were going for sports by the end of junior year. If the theory was correct, then by principle these girls would have experienced "Senioritis" at the end of junior year, and this simply was not the case. One in particular used to make flashcards for her tests junior year, even after she verbally committed to college. This year however, she told her teacher that she would rather receive a 0% on an essay assignment rather than make it up after school even though she had nothing going on in that time period. First of all if that's not the definition of Senioritis then I don't know what is and second of all you may be wondering why now? Why did she wait until now to display the symptoms of Senioritis?

There is no doubt that stress and anxiety were relieved upon her verbal commitment to college. But, the reason she did not display symptoms until senior year is because many of her fellow classmates also heard back from colleges senior year, and in my experience thus far it is much easier to become infected with the disease when you are surrounded by a large group of classmates. Senioritis does not infect individuals, it infects classes.

The Season Begins

I've always wondered as an underclassman when Senioritis truly begins to kick in. I think I'm beginning to discover that answer now, as many of my friends have already sent their college applications in and first quarter just drew to an end. I will say that my friends who have already found out about college acceptances have displayed a greater lack of motivation in school than friends who are still applying to college.

In my school there are mandatory study halls two days of the week that the entire school is required to go to, except for seniors who have completed their first quarter. I heard someone say in the senior lounge just the other day, "wow the end of J-Block is going to be the death of my grades."

Not to mention, in the next three weeks, we will only be attending eight and a half days of real school. We have off for Parent Teacher Conferences, Thanksgiving Break, our annual Mayfield Market, etc. Then it is Christmastime and even more college acceptance letters will be pouring in. We are now entering a season in school were we really do not go to school so teachers will have difficulty with scheduling while students, especially seniors, will lose motivation to succeed.

Clearly, there is not just one factor causing the transformation of a healthy senior to one infected with Senioritis, but I have a funny feeling that as the next couple of months unfold there will be an outbreak in our school.