Second semester at Manitou Springs High School started Jan. 7, bringing with it a burnout among students commonly called “Senioritis.” Senioritis typically refers to seniors’ loss of motivation and willingness to do work or come to school. By second semester most seniors have submitted their college applications and their financial aid applications, and are just waiting for the next steps.
Chris Lewis, MSHS’s counselor for students with last names A-K, believes that senioritis is not always a bad thing. “I think senioritis is the feeling that students who have been at a school for a long time and are preparing to be somewhere else next year get. It’s mentally putting yourself in whatever that next step is for you, whether it be work or college,” Lewis said. “There are bright spots ahead, you just have to look forward to those bright spots.”
History teacher Sam Duff shares a similar view of senioritis. “Senioritis is the feeling that you are ready for the next step, next challenge, or next opportunity, and the stuff that you are currently tasked with completing has become a little mundane, and you are looking forward to what is coming next,” he said.
The biggest struggle that teachers notice for students who believe that they’re experiencing senioritis is continuing to show up. “Kids are having a hard time getting to school in the morning or are getting signed out early to go home because they simply don’t want to stay all day,” Lewis said.
Making sure to continue to have a good school life balance can be hard for seniors. “You try not to fail classes, but don’t try too hard in that area, or else you’re gonna lose your friends,” senior Madi Campbell said. “It’s like you have to really try hard to keep your social connection, so that you stay motivated to keep going here and end up graduating.”
Campbell feels like her classes this year are relatively easy which is leading to her having senioritis. “Sometimes, I kind of just feel like I’m wasting my time until college; and I could be doing better things right now,” she said.
Duff believes that it is important to continue to be working toward something to help counteract senioritis. “There’s still more work to be done, and there’s still more things to do, even though your high school experience has come to an end,” Duff said.
Among the few seniors who believe they aren’t feeling senioritis is Kyle Blasi. “I don’t think I personally have senioritis,” he said. “But I know I also want to say that I have senioritis to fit in. I think the people that I’m with definitely influence my perception of that stuff.”
Blasi focused on taking time for himself amid the stress of college applications. “Making sure to do stuff that I enjoy and having a life outside of school and still spending time with friends helped,” he said. “I think the lack of those things is what causes people to have senioritis in the first place.”
Lewis similarly believes that he dodged senioritis when he was in high school. “I didn’t really give myself time to have too much senioritis,” he said. “I was an athlete, so a lot of my motivation and thinking was about track and having to be at school and having to do what I was supposed to be doing in the classroom to be able to run.”
Lewis’s biggest piece of advice for seniors, and even younger students is to find a hobby to help with motivation. “Ask yourself, why do you come to school? Perhaps learning is not the number one thing on their list. Number one could be a team, and you know because of that team, you’ve got to be at school. It’s just extra motivation,” he said.
Teams are not the only option for additional motivation. “It is imperative for you to find a hobby or an interest or a passion and dive into that hobby, interest or passion and pursue it,” Duff said. “Just because you are done with US History for example does not mean that you shouldn’t care about current events that are going on in the world.”
With just a few short months left, Blasi urges seniors not to see their upcoming graduation as a reason to stop doing work. “See it as an opportunity. We only have a few months left in these halls, and so don’t start slacking off,” he said, “make the most of the time that we still have left here in Manitou.”
