As the 2021-2022 school year is coming to an end, the days are starting to get longer and longer. The students here at Pennridge are quickly losing motivation, especially the seniors. Pennridge’s class of 2022 is suffering from a bad case of senioritis. Senioritis is a “disorder that makes students less capable of putting effort into school during their final semester and causes seniors to feel unmotivated and display a careless attitude” Teachers and faculty start to notice symptoms such as loss of motivation, drop in grades, incomplete assignments, procrastination increase, loss interest in studies, skipping class, feeling fatigued, and misbehaving. Once students hit the 4th quarter of the school year, they ask themselves why they are still doing work.

I sat down with one of the Pennridge psychology teachers, Stephanie Nash, and asked her if she knew what senioritis is, and she had much to say on the topic. Nash explained that she starts to see a decline in her AP psych classes immediately after the AP exam is over. For her other semester classes, she starts to notice symptoms of senioritis at the “end of the third quarter and into the 4th quarter is the worst” Nash teaches academic and AP classes but, she believes that she sees that lack of motivation more in her academic students. “In the AP classes, there is not a big decline because the students still want to end on a good note. This is not the case in her lower-level classes, where students give up more.” Nash believes she sees the same thing in juniors here at Pennridge as well. I asked Nash if senioritis takes a toll on the teachers, and she stated that she purposely does certain lessons and activities at the end to keep her students involved as much as possible. She understands that we all want to be done, and she does too. The overall cause of senioritis is students getting accepted and committing to a college, claims Nash. Once students know what they are doing after high school, they no longer see the point in trying because their future is planned out.

I continued to find more about senioritis by interviewing a student here at Pennridge. Kaitlyn Bumpers is a senior here at Pennridge and is top ten in the 2022 graduating class. Kaitlyn has been accepted into about 20 different colleges but still has not chosen her future home. Even though Kaitlyn has not decided what college she wants to attend in the fall, she sees no point in trying in school anymore. “ Every day, it is a struggle to get out of bed. I no longer do assignments, I have gotten C’s or below on every test last marking period,” claims Bumpers. She agrees with Nash that since she’s been accepted to so many schools Bumpers says her senioritis is continuing to get worse. Kaitlyn is trying to stay as motivated as possible, but it’s hard when there are 30 days left of high school, and you have your future set.

Most of the seniors at Pennridge are trying their best to do what they can to get the school year over with. The last 30 days always take the longest but once it’s over it’s over for good.