Pro:

It’s that time of year again. A “crippling” disease has stricken this year’s graduating class. This condition, known as senioritis, hits the senior class annually. While it may permanently claim a few students, on the whole, the class will survive.

The symptoms of this disease include laziness, lack of studying and excessive absences. For those who fight the illness, second semester can be more draining than any semester prior. However, for those that succumb to the ailment, second semester senior year can be one of the best times of their life.

While junior year and the first semester of senior year can leave many students feeling burnt out and tired, second semester has been known as a time for healing. Taking a semester off is an important part of preparing for college. One short summer is simply not enough for students to recover fully from the sleep deprivation and stress of high school and simultaneously equip themselves for college.

Not only does senioritis allow students to recuperate, it allows them to separate. The inevitable parting of ways must occur over time to prevent withdrawal in the long run. Second semester senior year is an important transition time that allows the graduating class to gain new awareness and a purer state of mind before going off to a new place of study for the years to come.

With senioritis comes the age-old threat of college admissions being revoked. While this has been known to happen in very extreme cases of senioritis, in the more common, milder cases there have only been small repercussions. More often the by-products of senioritis include a small decline in gpa, a small increase in visits from Mr. O. and the embracing of an overall dismissive attitude.

In fact, one of the most redeeming qualities of senioritis has to be the preparation it gives students for college. Many seniors no longer spend their time outside of school completing their homework and as a result they become much more efficient workers. Three hours of work meant to be completed at home can now be completed in two free periods. Now, if that isn’t a skill students will use later in life, I don’t know what is.

Seniors have worked hard for the past three and a half years, and it is finally time to sit back, relax and let their record do the talking. Whether or not they have been accepted into college yet, now is the time to savor their final months with family and friends, not with their textbooks. As long as students don’t allow senioritis to engulf them completely, it is without a doubt justified for seniors to celebrate all of their achievements and to get ready to begin the next chapter of their lives.

Con:

For freshmen, sophomores and juniors, the winter and spring quarters induce motivation: a chance to improve first semester lapses. For many seniors, especially those who have already received their college acceptance letters, passing second semester is nothing more than a graduation requirement.

The change in energy in senior classes is almost tangible. Students slump a little lower in their seats, their work is a little sloppier, and there is a pleading urgency in the teachers’ voices as they struggle to keep the attention of their once hardworking students who no longer care about their grades.

Now, I can completely understand that once a person is accepted into college they feel less pressure to keep their grades up. The obvious repercussion of this is that colleges retain the right to rescind an application.

Usually a warning is sent out to the student before the acceptance is withdrawn, and even then, students who get this warning letter must have an extreme drop in grades. Christopher Watson, Dean of Northwestern Undergraduate Admissions told the New York Times that, “You would have to have a severe drop-off in your academic performance that would make us pause as to whether you could do the work to be successful here.”

So obviously, this is a less likely repercussion of letting senioritis take over. The thing that I find most disappointing about this nationally recognized tradition is that it proves the idea that, for the most part, the classes that we take; and the activities we do are for the sole purpose of getting into college.

It is disheartening to me that a student who once challenged him or herself in honors courses and was involved in many different extra curricular activities would stop trying their best in all of these things just because they got into college.

Call me an optimist, but I would like to believe that even as high school students, we have a purpose beyond getting into that Ivy-League school.

I would like to believe that someone taking five AP courses is doing it because they are genuinely interested in those subjects. Those people who flip the “off” switch the moment 1st semester is over are simply confirming the superficiality of the college process.

We as a society are perpetually criticizing the competitiveness of the college process, however much of that drive and competitiveness comes from the students themselves.

If the way seniors act in the second semester is any indication of their genuine interest in the classes they take, then I think we need to reconsider the message that we are sending to students of a younger generation. I think that “senioritis” is just one effect of a much more serious problem.

We are trained to be well-oiled machines, with one purpose alone: get into college. Once we have fulfilled that purpose, most students, understandably, see no reason to keep trying in school.

I, for one, think that there are many reasons why we should keep trying. A good work ethic is invaluable. What happens when there is no college to get into? Will people be in a perpetual state of senioritis because they no longer have a purpose?

Now, I am not saying that senioritis plagues every single person. I think the most important thing to remember is that we should not let society turn us into machines that just go through the motions to fulfill one purpose. And after we get into college, we should not lose track of the things that genuinely interest us.

And for those of you underclassman, remember that life is about much more than packing a million extracurriculars onto an application. We should aim to stay true to the passions that we have before and after we get accepted into college.