Conquering senioritis

“Coffee is one cure to senioritis, but it might not be enough for some.” Photo by Sarah G. used under Creative Commons license.

Kendra Nixon, Content Editor

“Noun. A crippling disease that strikes seniors. Symptoms include: laziness, an over-excessive wearing of track pants, old athletic shirts, sweatpants, athletic shorts, and sweatshirts. Also features a lack of studying, repeated absences, and a generally dismissive attitude. The only known cure is a phenomenon known as graduation.” –Urban Dictionary

If you’ve ever been a senior before, whether it was in high school or in college, you understand the concept of senioritis. Some may argue that senioritis is a myth; it’s just something students make up to give them an excuse to be lazy. But I would like to counter that.

Not only have I caught the disease, I have seen the smartest and hardest working students go down. The students you’ve known for the past four years who never miss class, study an excessive amount, and actually wear jeans to class everyday (who does that?) are starting to waver. They are more easily persuaded to miss a class, put off studying, sleep in, and wear sweatpants (crazy, I know).

Now this isn’t a problem necessarily. People do it all the time, right? Wrong. It IS a problem. And ironically, the problem is also the solution: graduation. On one hand, graduation is at their fingertips. It’s so close that they think they can start to slowly dwindle off. But that isn’t the way to go. Without a strong finish, a senior could be three hours short of graduation. And if you’re a senior, you know how frustrating that would be.

So how do you find motivation to get through that last semester, those last classes, and those last assignments? I have searched the campus far and wide to get advice from the wisest of the wise, the brightest of the bright, the motivatedest of the motivated.

Anyway, according to senior Bekah Barkocy who is on her “victory lap,” just knowing that she’ll be done having to meet teacher’s deadlines and listening to their rules is enough to get her through. She looks forward to being able to design her own things in a real life setting.

“My dad’s paying quite a bit for me to go here so I want to finish strong,” Barkocy said regarding what keeps her motivated. “I can feel like I achieved something at the end of the day”

Senior Dusty Dimitri has discovered a different way to motivate himself to get through this last semester: “Drink a lot of coffee, try to stay extra caffeinated and make sure there’s something fun to do at the end of classes.”

Coffee is one cure to senioritis, but it might not be enough for some. Senior Kim Wiedemann has already started her countdown to graduation: “I just realized I have 14 weeks left. I can power through it because I’m ready to graduate.”

These seniors are not alone in their struggle to defeat senioritis, and they offered some advice for everyone else looking for some motivation.

“Just keep your head up and get through it and have a positive attitude while doing it even though you’re annoyed at everything because there are a lot of younger students looking up to us,” Barkocy said.

Wiedemann’s advice was to talk to your friends and say, “come on man, motivate each other!” Dimitri’s advice was plain and simple, “Over-caffeinate.”

Whether it’s finances, caffeine or the simple will to get school over with, it can be easy to find the motivation you need to survive this last semester. So reach deep down and find what motivates you to finish strong, but don’t miss out on the journey along the way. As a very wise Ferris Bueller once said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.”