The Dangers of Senioritis

Senior year, the final year of high school. An important year for all students and their families. It’s the culmination of all their hard work up to that point. What should be a happy time for students can easily become a nightmare if they fall victim to Senioritis.
Senioritis, as defined by Oxford Languages, is characterized by a decline in motivation or performance. Particularly happening to students in their final year of high school or college.
This can cause students to be unable to focus in class and not get any work done. If they do any work, it’s done with far less effort than usual. Or that student might just ignore that class and start skipping it, or even skip school entirely.

All because they know they´re close to finishing school and don´t think they need to put in any more effort than they have to. After all, they’ve made it to Senior year and deserve a break.

However, this runs the risk of causing their grades to drop. Something that colleges look at and may deny admission because of. A senior student may not know that and cost themselves a chance at their dream college. Just by their grade dropping a bit and it could all be caused by senioritis.
For students that are experiencing it, here are a few tips. As recommended by Ashley Wallis, writer from SNHU, ¨…changing up your environment by working on your coursework in a new place can help jumpstart your motivation.¨ After so many years of school a change of scenery is more than warranted.

It’s also important to remember that you´re not finished just yet, there’s still work to be done. So just push through until you’re done with school and not before.

However, that doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to take a break. “You do actually need breaks and your mind or body crashing is a sign that you may be overdoing it.”, as said by Abby Tincher, an SNHU academic advisor. Taking a step back from work is a very common way to deal with burnout and students shouldn’t feel bad for needing one. They just need to stay focused on the overall task at hand and keep in mind that they still have things to do.

On the whole, the feeling of burnout can be dangerous for students and it’s especially common for those in their senior year. The inability to motivate themselves to do work can lead to problems in the future like affecting their chances of being admitted to a college. Which is why its important that they be aware of the dangers of senioritis.