By Vanessa Lim

This story was posted on May 28, 2024. Here is the original link.

As graduation approaches, seniors lose their motivation and drive to keep up with the classes and school work. In other words, seniors are plagued with senioritis.

While high school graduation is an exciting accomplishment, the months leading up to it have proven to be difficult for students at Maury High School.

Whether students are pursuing college, trade school, or the military, senioritis causes students to experience burnout as they approach the finish line. Program Leader of MHSP, Travis Mansell says people mentally check out when their future is predetermined.

“Senioritis is kids mentally moving onto the next step,” says Mansell.

Senioritis does not affect all students equally. The symptoms of senioritis can be everything from submitting a few late assignments to skipping weeks of school at a time, but the consistent factor is a lack of motivation.

Jammarie Morala, a Maury senior, says that it is “extremely difficult to wake up early at 5 AM everyday and attend [her] first class of the day.” Morala also says that after missing the same class back-to-back, she “feels guilty because teachers would be worried and ask what happened.”

Arianna Goodman, another Maury senior, believes that senioritis is only understandable in certain situations.

“Seniors that are finding it easy to keep their grades at a high standard and have a low number of classes have the right to feel like not going to class a couple of days out of the week,” says Goodman. “However, missing three weeks at a time is never okay.”

Mansell has one warning for seniors this school year.

“My rule of thumb for everyone is to do no damage to their future self.”