By Darcy ’23
The phenomenon of senioritis is one that second-semester seniors grapple with daily. I personally define senioritis as the breaking point in your high school career where you genuinely have no spare energy to put toward your academics. For example, you complete only what is assigned to you with only enough effort to meet the minimum requirement. When writing an essay, you press the submit button to Turnitin and completely forget the assignment even existed until an official note creeps into your email informing you about your grade and your teacher’s free periods to guide you toward more success in your writing. Moreover, senioritis is the art of not caring about your grades in the capacity you did as a second-semester junior.
If you happen to be one of the lucky individuals accepted into your early decision college, senioritis could hit as early as mid-December. The only disadvantage to completing the college process earlier than most is that you’re outnumbered by students who are still grinding tirelessly. You might be worried that your case of senioritis will put you far behind the rest of your class, but that’s where I come in. Welcome one, welcome all, to the official tutorial on how you can overcome your senioritis in five simple steps!
Step one: Self-appreciation! This step should be taken daily to help senioritis fade as you recognize and appreciate the amount of hard work and dedication you’ve put into your high school career thus far. Pat yourself on the back, senior, you’ve made it this far! By congratulating and reminding yourself of your accomplishments, you can motivate yourself to keep up the effort as you make it toward the finish line.
Step two: GO. TO. CLASS. If you find yourself lingering around the senior lounge or Larchmont Boulevard during a period when you have class scheduled, this is for you. The amount of time you spend out of class during a school day only makes it more difficult to pay attention for the 70 minutes you’re actually in class for, as you’ve trained your brain to think that it’s optional. Here are some rhetorical questions that will help me wrap up this step: Do you want to understand what you’re learning in your classes? Is your inbox flooded with “what happened today?” emails from your teachers? Do you want to experience teacher/senior class bonds? If your answers were yes, yes and yes, then I have just the solution for you: go to class.
Step three: Give yourself a limit on signing out. By limiting your sign outs, you can engage with classmates you typically wouldn’t have if you weren’t on campus during most of the day. Marlborough has a plethora of study spaces aside from the senior lounge where you can complete assignments outside of your home, making your time away from school free of excess work.
Step four: Treat yourself! Bake five of your favorite sweet treats on a Sunday evening, one for each day of the week. After staying at school from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., you deserve to treat yourself. Step five: Enjoy your last few months at Marlborough. Personally, this step has led me to (finally) test negative for senioritis. Since the second semester of senior year entails significantly less pressures than previous years, fully immerse yourself in your classes. Take notes with colorful pens and cursive headers, writing down exactly what you find important and noteworthy. You no longer need to take Cornell notes, scribbling down as much information as possible before your teacher changes the slide. As the purpose of education is to learn, write down what you, specifically, learned. I promise this step will help you thoroughly love and appreciate your teachers and their teaching styles.
