Senioritis is a natural infliction that students develop towards skipping classes in the final semester of grade 12 due to a severe drop in motivation or requirement to do well in school. So, we wanted to know, does senioritis exist at our school? If it does, how prominent is it? How much of an issue does it pose?
What better way to know than ask the students and teachers themselves?
Our first stop was Ms. Blazina, one of our school’s business teachers. She shared that “Students are still coming to class on time because it’s still early, but we’ll see what happens after midterms.”
Although senioritis is not yet a large issue in her class, she found it important to mention that in the past, they’ve had a few students lose their conditional offers because they often skipped their classes, and as a result weren’t able to prepare for or write their exams well.
“So, senioritis happens,” she says, “but I think some people quickly realize it’s not worth it.”
Clearly, the act of skipping classes, even once a student has received their early acceptance, can be detrimental to their success in the class, and their ability to get into their desired university.
We then made our way over to Mr. Rabadia. Since most students take sciences because they are mandatory courses for all STEM Majors, we were interested in seeing if he would have a different perspective about this topic. Mr. Rabadia stated, “It’s the psychology of some students. They get whatever they wanted, now that there’s no motivation to do things, but they don’t see beyond that.”
Even Mr. Chagani, a staff sponsor for the school’s newspaper, agreed that “it’s absolutely real.”
We then decided to speak to a few grade 12 students to get their perspective. When asked if he agreed with the controversial concept of senioritis and if he believes that it’s ok, Saksham Bhatia commented that “I do agree with it. You don’t have to stop trying, but just try less. Enjoy your time.”
Another grade 12 student, Jeevan Dhindsa, admitted to not liking the idea of senioritis, but that she feels it right now, already being almost a month into her last semester of high school. “I’m just really exhausted and tired now, and I don’t really support the idea of senioritis but I just can’t stop myself from feeling this way.”
We then spoke to Manush Patel and asked if he thinks anything can be done to solve senioritis. He claimed, “No. Unless you’re a top academic achiever, you can’t do anything.”
Interestingly enough, Ms. Johnston did have some suggestions about how to tackle this problem. She brought up ideas surrounding stricter attendance policies for students who skip, giving out more zeros on assignments, refusing to listen to students who beg for marks at the end of the semester, and putting more emphasis on the actual learning and less on their final grade.
Finally, we interviewed Mr. Scorcia, and he had some new thoughts to share relating to this topic. He stated “I don’t like the term senioritis, I’d like to refer to it as a significant drop in effort.”
However, Mr. Scorcia also said, “I think it’s natural. It’s a long road. I mean they’ve been in school for 14 years now, going back to kindergarten, and it’s like a bittersweet time, right? Like you’re leaving and there’s a little bit of nervousness. It’s just like emotional and mental fatigue. It’s bound to happen.”
So finally, we can conclude that senioritis is a very real thing, and it’s definitely beginning to take a toll on our grade 12 students. It’s important to remember that, as mentioned by numerous staff interviewees, “You can take the pedal off the gas, but you still need to keep the cruise control on.”
These students mustn’t lose all their motivation while also still enjoying this nostalgic period that marks the end of this time in their lives.
Photo Credits: Bal D.
THE NORTH STAR 