Senior year is the most anticipated year for all high school students. All students look forward to receiving their high school diploma and not looking back after high school. It is the year of responsibilities, decision making and planning. Sadly, it’s also the year in which senioritis strikes.

Senioritis is a “disease” shown among many seniors who fall back on work, don’t show up to class and lack motivation for school. Multiple students at SRHS state that the main symptom of senioritis is procrastination. Students procrastinate on their work because they believe they are capable of doing all their work at once. All their work piles up, leading the student to stress over everything that must be done in a short amount of time.

Students begin to only aim for ‘C’ average grades because they want to make sure they graduate on time with minimum effort, while also being college eligible. This is very risky because there isn’t any room for error. This causes a lot of stress in the long run.

JC, a SRHS senior, is proof of this. “Once I get accepted to college all I will aim for are C’s because it will get the job done.”

Students don’t realize that the past three years of high school actually have a vast significance. Students that aim for C-average grades end up with a lot of stress and pressure because they realize there is not sufficient time left to fix their mistakes. This results in strong levels of anxiety for seniors.

Counselors also feel the anxiety that seniors have because they want to make sure that every senior is graduating on time. Due to the lack of effort that a senior might put in their past years of high school it is difficult for a counselor to help these students graduate in just a short amount of time.

Rumors have a vast impact on students in their education. “Freshman year not being important is a myth; all years are important because a slight mistake even at the end of your senior year can cause your college acceptance to be rescinded,” stated Nancy Diaz, a SRHS senior.

During Eduardo’s freshman year of high school, he noticed many freshman at SRHS and other local schools expressing the same statement: “Freshman year is not important.”

As freshmen year went on, Eduardo noticed a significant amount of students who shared that statement did not do their schoolwork. Now, some of those students are not eligible to apply college because of their lack in effort a few years ago.

We need to stop senioritis because students’ procrastination leads to a great deal of stress and unrecoverable mistakes in their classes. This affects the future of many students.

The best way to cure senioritis is for students to make sure that they are focused on their main goals. They should also surround themselves with more students that strive to keep working hard and reach for their goals. The behavior of unmotivated procrastinators is very contagious. Students need to realize the bare minimum will not cut it. In the end, it will only set them up for failure and great stress.