Just about everyone has heard about senioritis, but what is it? Senioritis is the term given to a senior class phenomenon. This phenomenon effects highschool seniors across the country; it causes many students to skip class, give minimal effort, and overall struggle in their final year.

So who does senioritis exactly effect? You may think that it effects only students who typically ditch class in the past, never turned in assignment or got good grades. However this is not always the case. Sometimes students whith perfect attendance and grades will be effecteded the hardest.

In fact senior year is the year that more students lose their 4.0 than any other grade, but why is this? Senior year at many schools across the nation is the easiest. Many times you don’t need to take all 8 classes, you get more electives, and overall you have more freedom than any other year of high school.

This should mean that Senior year would be the year the students do better than average, but it isn’t. One reason for this could be due to the fact that the schedules are easier. It could be possible that giving students a schedule full of easy A classes and homerealese periods is actually doing damage.

This theory believes that the easy schedules causes students to think in a way that justifies slacking. For instance if a student typically went to their classes and never missed because they were scared to get behind. They might change their thought process when all their classes are easy to catch up on after missing.

Once a student misses a class or two and makes up their assignment online they may start building a habit out of this. One bad habit to build another and eventually the student may stop making up the classes they missed and fall deep into a decline. This would explain the bad attendance and academic slump we see In much of our senior class.

The only problem with this theory is that not all students take easy schedules senior year. In fact more often than not the students who take harder and more full senior year schedules fall further behind than those who take the easy ones.

The more commonly accepted theory used to explain senioritis is as simple as burnout. After 11 years of school 4 of which in high school students may feel burnt out. They may struggle to finish that last year and feel sick of it already.

This goes deeper than the students just being of sick of doing homework though. All though the same repetitive assignments, having to attend different classes that all feel the same and having to work just as hard every day no matter how you feel can wear someone down. This isn’t the only reason senioritis happens.

Students deal with that for twelve years and typically know how to handle school without burnout for eleven of those years. So what makes the final year so different. One thing not on that list is the fact that school has strict rules. If you break these rules you get in trouble. Not only do you have to follow the schools rules but you also have to follow the schools schedule.

You have to be where the school tells you to when they tell you to and you must act in the way they tell you to. These rules are often as strict in elementary school as they are in high school. After a while students become used to it and don’t think much about them, they just follow them.

However senior year most of the students turn eighteen. They are being told they are adults and having to plan their futures. At the same time they are being told they have to follow the same rules that kids at the elementary school follow.

With the freedom of becoming an adults stacked with the fact that they are burnt out of school and tired of the structure they must follow the students may begin to rebel. After ditching class a few times they gain control over something that controlled them for eleven years.

This can build a bad habit of repeatedly skipping class. This bad habit will begin to have an effect on the students grades causing them to fall behind. Falling behind can be stressful which worsens this cycle the student had already fell into.

One example comes from a Davis High School student. He was walking to class late when he since he forgot to set an alarm from the day before. While walking to class the hall monitor asked him where he was going.

In an already irritable mood the student told her he didn’t have to tell her. She told him to go to class which he told her he was already doing. Talking back to her led her to send him to the office. When she told him to go he said “I was on my way to class but if you want to make me more late sure lets go”. When asked why he reacted in a such a way he responded in a surprising way.

He said typically he would have been nice and done what she said. That morning though he felt tired of a school. Already not wanting to be there and being forced to go he snapped. When he didn’t listen to her and defied her it gave him a sense of control.

This is just one example but many seniors feel this way. They have spent most their lives attending school and being told where to be and when. Being told how to act, what to wear, what’s appropriate to talk about and what’s not.

They feel so close to ending this period of their life. Since it feels so close they tend to what to rush it. They begin skipping class, not doing work, and defying their teachers. All though this is not good, this action is what gives seniors that sense of control they have been wanting.