It is senior year with only a couple weeks of school left to go. The senior who for the last four years has spent ample time juggling school work, extracurricular activities, a social life, and maybe even a part time job is shutting down and choosing hanging out with friends over doing homework. Their part time job is becoming superior to school. They have been accepted into college and do not see the need to be on time to high school anymore. The diagnosis? Senioritis.

Definition – By definition Senioritis means  “: an ebbing of motivation and effort by school seniors as evidenced by tardiness, absences, and lower grades” as found on Merriam-Webster. com. On average at GEHS there are around 28 senior students who are absent in one given day. As well as 37 tardies in one week. It is believed senioritis is a phenomenon that occurs when seniors look at the end of their high school career and check out before they have completed the work needed to graduate according to parentingteens.about.com.  Attendance secretary,  Becky Pyle stated “It is pretty easy to tell [when seniors could be suffering from senioritis]”. Senioritis can be an easy thing to catch and a hard thing to get rid of.

Symptoms:

-Poor Grades

-Incomplete Assignments

-Skipping Class

-Tardiness

-Laziness

-Unenthusiastic attitude toward homework or school projects

-Boredom

-Defiance of Authority

Causes – There is no known scientifically proven causes of senioritis but there are multiple ideas that are believed to cause this phenomenon. One idea is that seniors are burnt out and ready to graduate. After the long process of searching for a college that is right for them, juggling extracurricular activities, and having a life outside of school, seniors are ready for a break. Another possible cause is that students are bored. Some seniors may feel their classes are not relevant to what they plan to study in college or to their careers after high school.  By second semester of their senior year many students are counting down the days until graduation. Fear of change is another possible cause. After high school many students will move out on their own and leave their family and childhood friends behind. In college, they will meet new people, but for some this could seem like a daunting task.

Cures – Some think the best cure for senioritis is to graduate. There are also other cures such as taking more challenging classes during your senior year to keep yourself motivated and busy.  Some students find relief from this phenomenon by doing the opposite.  They decide instead to go part time and lighten their class load. At the end of first semester, 162 seniors went part time this year. That is about 63 percent of the senior class as a whole. If the senior does something fun or something they enjoy for themselves outside of school that could also show promise as a cure.