I think the first time I heard of senioritis was my junior year. I thought to myself, “Senioritis? That’s got to be fake; there’s no way that a huge phenomenon just stops seniors from doing their schoolwork.”

“It’s true!” said former West High student Yadira Govea. When I inquired fully, she had said, “It definitely seems like an excuse yeah, but I promise you, you will feel it your senior year.”

So now I’m here, coming towards the end of senior year. Before I share my personal experience, I asked West High student Gurshaan Singh if he was affected by senioritis, “I have like straight C’s right now, my grades wouldn’t look like this in any other year.” Singh went on to say, “It just seems pointless, I’m going to college anyways, this last semester doesn’t matter as much.”

Now, I guess we can get onto my experience. My junior year was by far the best year I have ever had academically: I was so college oriented, I had a great support system around me, and even though it wasn’t easy, I worked my absolute hardest, and did my absolute best to set myself up for success. I call it my redemption year, the year I truly started becoming the person I am today. My sophomore year was an upgrade from my freshman year, but let’s be honest, who REALLY got good grades freshman year? At the end of my junior year, I was so proud of myself, “Senioritis? Never heard of em.” Little did I know I was about to learn extremely quickly.

Then, before you know it, senior year comes along, I don’t have the easiest schedule, but it certainly isn’t the hardest. And the first quarter went by so smoothly, I came into the school year with the same motivation and gusto I left the last one with, then the second quarter came around.

When people talk about senioritis, I didn’t expect it to hit me as quickly as the second quarter, but it did. The incredible lack of motivation to do any work is beyond real, it feels almost like a cage, a prison, not school itself, but your own mind, telling yourself “I’ll just do this for homework at home.” With full intention of doing, it at home, then suddenly you have work, or a football game, or your friends want to hang out, and then the homework never gets done. It piles, and piles, and piles, only further enforcing the bars on that cage, you know all you must do to get yourself out of that cage is to get your work done but the harder you try the less you want to, the less it feels worth it.

So, you say “I’ll take the week off, focus on my mental health, and pick it back up next week.” But then the next week comes, and now not only do you have the work you were already missing, but the work from that week you missed piles onto it, that week you took off to take care of yourself effectively causes the opposite to happen.

Senioritis is a beast, it hurts, and it’s hard, and I’ve dealt with it, like many other seniors. Senioritis is real, very real, but it’s not the end. Keep pushing, keep fighting, you didn’t work this hard for nothing, you’re almost at the end, finish strong!