Seniors have a hard time most of their final year in school. Often times, seniors feel a lot of boredom, burnout, and feeling like grades don’t matter. They’re at the end of school and just want to get it over with.
According to the Department of Education, senioritis can be described as “tendencies such as arriving late or skipping classes, decreased motivation, or behaving irresponsibly by investing little time in school.”
One of the main causes of senioritis is burnout because after years of studying, homework, and extracurricular activities, seniors often feel mental burnout. Angel, a student at PHS, was questioned on whether he thought his academic procrastination had to do anything with burnout.
“In a way it is burnout because you have to deal with a lot of all nighters and having a poor sleep schedule makes it worse, especially for seniors since we have a lot of freedom,” he replied.
Also, lack of challenge can be another influence to senioritis because seniors often have met all their class requirements which makes them feel as though these extra credit classes they’re taking are pretty much useless and that they don’t need to try because they don’t need them and would just be doing extra work.
Another senior at PHS was asked whether he thought he felt like he had to do his schoolwork.
“Not really because I kind of already have all the classes I need and I don’t really want to do extra stuff. It gets harder for me to focus on my work because I really don’t need it,” he said.
The student also added his thoughts on what can be done to help the issue.
“I think if schools made it to where if you have all your graduation requirements, you don’t have to take any more classes,” he said. “I do understand that there is a lot of problems that would require solutions for that to happen but if they did that, that would just make things a whole lot better because now students won’t have to feel that all these extra classes they are taking their senior year are just a burden of extra work.”
Senioritis happens all over schools as seniors prepare to move on in life. There are many reasons as to why it happens and a lot can be done to help it but at the end of the day, seniors must cherish their last moments in high school while they can and keep up with their work. Senioritis is normal; it’s nothing to be ashamed of.
