Watching over East Leyden

The Eagle's Eye

Watching over East Leyden

The Eagle's Eye

Watching over East Leyden

The Eagle's Eye

Senioritis – May Seems So Close Yet So Far

According to Wikipedia, senioritis is a term used to describe students with decreased motivation to do school work at the end of their senior year. Kids with senioritis typically wear sweats to school, are on their phones, look tired, and display little interest in their studies.

Senioritis seems to not only affect a student’s appearance but also his/her grades. If the senior has decreased motivation to do school work, they may not do homework or study for exams and his/her grades will usually reflect this. Some colleges and universities may even send a letter informing students that they can no longer attend that college due to the decrease in their academic grades.

In Leyden’s hallways and classrooms, senior students with this “illness” can be found pretty easily just by the sight of them.

Senior Angelica Rejczak is an AP student that shows signs of senioritis, such as coming to school wearing sweats, constantly being tired, and being disinterested in school work.

“I started feeling senioritis after I visited one of my friends at University of Iowa because it made me excited to go to college,” Rejczak explained.

While Rejczak admits to being known for always wearing sweatpants to school, she noted the effect senioritis has had on her academics.

“Senioritis definitely affected my school work because I have no drive and my attendance decreased. I had 11 absences last semester, and I already have seven this semester,” Rejczak said.

For some seniors, senioritis leads to an increase in absences leading to some opting for emancipation to avoid dealing with parent permissions.

“My mom won’t emancipate me anymore because she knows I’ll just leave school after my hardest class, Chemistry AP” test which is in early May Rejczak admitted.

Seniors can be emancipated from their parents if they are 18 years old. When emancipated, a student no longer needs parent permission to leave school, be absent, and they don’t have to receive a parent’s signature on papers from the school.

Because of her class variety of AP, honors, and regular classes throughout high school, Rejczak understands the demands of all the class levels. She believes that “students who take hard classes senior year would get senioritis the most because they get tired of having the same schedule: wake up, go to school, do homework, eat, sleep, repeat.”

Rejczak has visited colleges, and most of her good friends graduated last year, so she has stayed with them while they were away at school. She noticed that higher level classes are similar to college courses, but you can pick your own class times and have more options.

In college, Rejczak believes you get to be more independent and have more free time.

I am a senior that has been in regular, honors, and AP classes. I started to notice my senioritis kicking in at the beginning of second semester. I just got back from winter break, being able to sleep in and do whatever I wanted, and all of a sudden my life was once again controlled by school.

I started caring less about certain classes and about how I looked when I went to school. Some classes I can’t risk letting myself become lazy with, but I do feel more frustrated with the classes than during first semester.

It is so close to summer and graduation with only three months left that I’m slacking off just hoping time will pass by faster.

I have study hall first period, so I don’t have to come to school until second period. Most people would think that being able to sleep in would be better because you get more sleep, or time to catch up on homework in the morning, but I think it actually makes me more lazy.

Knowing I can sleep in later makes me not want to do anything in the morning, and I’ll put things off at night and never end up getting up in the morning to do it. It is contributing to my case of senioritis.

I think almost all seniors get senioritis at one point throughout their senior year. It may be for a day or two during a stressful week, or it could be an entire semester while waiting to graduate.

Seniors have a lot to decide during a time span of a couple months, so it makes sense that we have a period of wanting it all to be over and done with already.

Seniors need to be aware of the consequences of senioritis so they can prevent the effects. Seniors should be involved in a few after school activities, so they keep their mind off of the end of the year. Getting school work done early can be helpful too because then the student will not be stressed out when the due date comes around. Also, on the weekends seniors should get some relaxation time, just to be calm and not worry about anything, or else use it to catch up on sleep!

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About the Contributor
Jessica Dreyer, Op/Ed Editor
I am a senior at East Leyden and part of the EIV Journalism class; I am also captain of the Varsity Cheerleading team. I was sent to the Leadership Conference last year by my coaches and was on the Mathematics team. After high school, I plan to go away to college, either the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne or Marquette University, and major in Chemistry.