There is a plague that ravages school districts across the globe; the students inflicted with this ailment are unable to perform any work and teachers fear the very sound of its name: Senioritis. Senioritis is an ailment where a student becomes less interested in school and does the bare minimum amount of work to pass a class with a C or D. It’s called Senioritis because It’s most commonly observed in the Senior class. It’s not officially a medical condition however it’s still a problem many students face.

A poll was given to the Senior class of Cape Central High School and 91.3% of the respondents claimed to have been affected by Senioritis. We asked a number of Seniors what they felt senioritis was to them, Traci Antill explains, “To me, Senioritis means I need to find something that interests me to get my work done” This makes sense for someone to feel as it can be hard to get work done when it doesn’t seem to matter at the time. “The longer the year goes by the less I want to be here,” said Abby Alday. This is another sentiment shared by many seniors and one of the core problems behind senioritis. Not every senior thinks they will feel senioritis or even realize they have senioritis until late in the year, Oliva Langston said, “At the start of the year I didn’t expect to get senioritis. However, as the year went on it was a gradual shift as my work ethic decreased and I felt I did less work than earlier semesters.”

While seniors might not pick up on the senioritis until they have already been affected by it Teachers have a keen eye for the signs, especially since many work with students for long periods of time. English teacher, Taylor Bryant was interviewed about the seniors she teaches and what she thinks about senioritis. Bryant said, “I have a lot of students like that in the spring semester… They require more encouragement to do work, they turn in less work. A six-page paper might come to me at four or five pages.” Some things of note that Bryant also provided was that senioritis is not just observed in the Senior class; she has seen students in the lower classes also experiencing the effect, “I don’t think it’s fair to deem it laziness, it’s more of an urgency to graduate and High School and it becomes less of a priority,” said Bryant. Most seniors don’t take the Spring Finals as they have graduated so Winter Finals are the last ones this can be a big start for the snowballing into senioritis. Bryant continued, “Oh, I think every class feels it in the springtime semester … You can start noticing it in the late first semester because it’s the last set of finals for most Seniors.”