Meet senioritis, and its friend, procrastination

Senioritis may not be a real disease, but it can hold students back from graduation and achieving passing grades.

Adrian Dantzler, a 21-year-old senior communications major from Mitcheville, Md., defined senioritis as: "When you're too lazy to do your work and you procrastinate."

Thomas Latshaw, a 22-year-old psychology major from Danielsville, Pa., said, "It's the basic feeling that you are done with school, when you really aren't."

Dantzler said many students at Norwich are struggling with senioritis. Latshaw added that students lack the motivation for doing assignments, projects and studying.

"Senioritis is usually accompanied by its best friend procrastination and spreads like wildfire; it's almost like an epidemic," Latshaw said.

Dantzler said he has senioritis, and hasn't found a way to deal with it. Dantzler plans to "keep his head down and push through the rest of the year."

Latshaw said his way of dealing with this so-called disease is by reminding himself that graduation is close and he "thinks about making his family proud."

Rob Sturgis, a 21-year-old senior communications major from Holden, Mass., said, "It's when you don't want to do anything. Not go to class, not do homework."

Not only can senioritis affect grades and cause lack of motivation, Sturgis said he knows students who weren't able to graduate on time because the student "lost motivation to do school work."

Alexandra Johns, 22, a recent graduate from Suffolk University, said she had senioritis her last year of college: "I struggled a lot, but my main focus was to concentrate on at least passing my classes and remind myself I am done school after this year."

Johns said once she saw her mid-term grades her fall semester it hit her that senioritis had set in, "I had mostly D's and C's and that's when I really started to care and snapped out of it."

Jessica Rosado, a 21-year-old senior civil engineering student from The Bronx, N.Y., said senioritis hit around the second week of school and it's still going strong.

Rosado said: "Your senior year you just want to sit around or hang out with your friends, but really in the back of your mind is, ‘I know I should be doing my homework and school assignments.'"

Zac Angelos, a 23-year-old senior history major from Pompano Beach, Fla., said he keeps himself busy by being a member of the football team.

To stay focused on schoolwork, Angelos said, "Sometimes I'll lock myself up in the library to make sure I get all my homework and projects done."

Sturgis also plays football and is one of the team's captains. He said: "Between football and being a captain I don't have a lot of free time to do much besides practice (football) and go to class."

Johns said when she was in college, she "made sure homework was done first. I scheduled times to lie around and be lazy and made times for my friends."

Morgan-Lee Fowler, a 22-year-old communications major student from Rowley, Mass., said, "I try to stay busy: I work catering, I go home on the weekends and spend time with my friends."

Nikki Leclair, a 21-year-old senior biology major from Biddeford, Maine, said her main focus is to "concentrate on getting schoolwork done during the week and enjoy the weekend with friends."

Rosado joined a few engineering clubs and is on the committee to create a scholarship for a teacher who recently died; she also has a work study job.

Leclair said she doesn't plan to let senioritis take over her semester completely because "I know I have obligations to tend to."

Collegeboard.com encourages teachers to "maintain a challenging course load in order to keep students focused during the time that senioritis sets in, as well as "attend school functions," such as football games, movie events, speakers and participate in sports and clubs.

The website also encourages students to "commit to an internship or career-focused job," which can help get students ready to enter the real world; "Let students know that keeping a calendar event of activities and deadlines that way they can plan ahead and make time for other things."

There's some debate whether senioritis is worse for high school or college seniors.

"Senioritis is more deadly to college seniors because college students have to think about what graduate schools to apply for or what city to live in or what plans to make after graduation," said Rosado.

Johns said: "Senioritis in college compared to senioritis in high school is much worse. We are pressured with what jobs to find after graduation, in high school you're only pressured to decide what to major in."

Leclair said, "I don't really think the faculty here at school (Norwich) see that students can really suffer their senior year." Leclair is suffering from senioritis and "wishes that the school would do something about this so-called disease."

Rutgers University holds an annual event called Senior Days, a three-day event for recently graduated seniors and upcoming seniors to participate. The event has scavenger hunts, a formal dance and a dinner.

Rosado asks why Norwich doesn't have something for seniors to do to fight senioritis. "I haven't even heard of a program here to help students with this challenge."

Rosado said she doesn't know any cures for dealing with senioritis, but "If anyone finds one please let me know."