I’ve been prone to chills and fatigue lately, and I blame this bodily decay on adulting. My favorite hoodie, whose superpower once allowed me to withstand 40 degree weather, now relies on sidekicks to finish its job.
But physical pain can be endured. What cannot endure is the deterioration of willpower that has gotten me this far. My level of patience and motivation to finish what’s left of my college career is so low that the purpose of my planner now is to house doodles inside their perfectly straight walls. My parents call all of this laziness, doctors say it’s burnout, but the truth has never been clearer; it’s senioritis.
For those who don’t know what senioritis is, it’s a colloquial term for the lack of motivation or drive which students experience while trying to finish their last academic year. The last time I heard this word was four years ago in high school. Those were the days when last-minute works still landed you good grades and teachers passed out extra credit assignments like pencils. If you try that now, you’ll see yourself back in the same seats next semester.
The issue with senioritis is that it’s such an ineffable phenomenon. You get it when you know that you’re going to pass with any grade other than an F, and that you’re competent enough to get through it with minimum effort. But we still do it, even when it means compromising ourselves in the long-term for short-term pleasure. In other words, we are essentially self-sabotaging ourselves, with almost nothing to gain for it.
All along I thought of this to be some sort of affliction students made up because of their laziness, but to my amusement, there are concrete studies proving its legitimacy. Southern New Hampshire University took the liberty to research this phenomenon and discovered it to be a type of psychology that makes us content with our current position. It loosens our rein on our purposes, and we let ourselves operate on a lower level until the next stage of one’s academic career arrives. Abby Tincher, an academic advisor for Southern New Hampshire University, describes it as “seeing the finish line and realizing you don’t necessarily have to work as hard anymore to reach it.”
This topic intrigued more than one prestigious university. Researchers at New York University (NYU) went more in-depth, noting in their findings that it’s strictly prevalent in high-school students and that the only cure is graduation. But there are also ways we can combat this in order to limit the damage it does with different methods proposed by NYU.
Some of them are to maintain activities that stimulate your mind so that you can keep pursuing what you love. You could also spend time not as a student, but as someone your age. Commit to healthy extracurricular activities that generate growth and excitement, or commit to an internship or a career-focused job. Doing those things may not save you completely from the grips of senioritis, but they were tested out and accepted for their level of efficiency in combating senioritis.