The truth is, senioritis is quite possibly the most consistently devastating illness high school students will ever face. Common symptoms include intense laziness and chronic overuse of Facebook. This “sickness” has become a recurring plague for second-semester seniors, and most people just accept that it is an inevitable part of the senior experience. However, as much as I love sitting at home doing nothing, (and believe me when I say I am a helpless victim of senioritis) I can’t help but wonder—are we wasting our time here? The purpose of senior year is, if nothing else, to prepare us for college or work, but senioritis has turned the legend of the useless second semester into a social norm.

  This is perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the situation—it’s okay. Teachers have adapted the curriculum so their students don’t fail, and the students themselves feel some sort of obligation to be unproductive. It’s almost as though there is a sort of peer pressure not to do anything. Now I’m all for giving students a break and time to relax, but what has this world come to when I have less homework in my AP Comparative Government class than I had in a non-honors freshman history course? That should just not happen.

   So here is the crux of the matter: senior year is not a joke. It is a preparation for life, and it should be treated as such. Although it is important for students to benefit from well-earned relaxation time, we cannot overdo it. Students need to maintain some degree of diligence, and teachers need to maintain some degree of difficulty in the curriculum. Sure, we’ve earned the right to relax a little, but we haven’t earned the right to completely disregard half of the most important year of high school.

  The primary thing we the students can do is avoid the imminent peer pressure. Just because your friends have gotten lazy does not mean you have to do the same; we have three glorious months of summer for that. But by starting the lethargy now, we are getting used to the idea that school should be easy, and that is going to be a tough thing to overcome in September. College will not be easy. Your professors will not care that you are lazy. Their job is to make sure you do your work, and your job over these next few months is to make sure you are ready for that.

  We all seem to suffer from senioritis to some degree. Most people consider it inevitable, and that’s okay. As long as we keep the “illness” under control, a little laziness can go a long way towards maintaining your sanity. Just don’t let it get out of hand, because these last few months really shouldn’t go to waste.