Hey, you, reading the newspaper: Got a lot of homework? Really couldn’t care less? You may be suffering from what doctors call “senioritis.” What’s that you say? You can’t possibly be suffering from senioritis because you’re not a senior? Well, my friend, welcome to the topsy-turvy modern world, where up is down, sincerity is ironic and even those who aren’t graduating in the very near future can take a lackadaisical attitude toward their schoolwork.
Senioritis, as those of you in the College of Communication, who don’t have to worry about doing work in the first place, may not know, is a unique condition that traditionally sets in senior year in which a student’s mindset begins to operate as if he or she has already graduated, and thus no longer has to do his or her schoolwork. Of course, the student suffering from senioritis still does have to do school work, setting up the age-old conflict between responsibilities and the shirking thereof. In other words, you’ve got a five-page paper due tomorrow, but it just doesn’t sound as interesting as unlocking that secret character in Super Smash Brothers Melee (the preferred video game of senioritis sufferers everywhere).
Most of you probably experienced senioritis during your senior year of high school. If you’re like me, you’ve also been battling it since your sophomore year of college. I’m not exactly sure what triggered it for me. It almost certainly wasn’t the mindset that I was graduating soon, because I wasn’t. I think it was the discovery that I could slack off on my work and not suffer any consequences for it. That’s what’s called positive reinforcement. I think. It’s not like I took any psychology classes; I understand you have to do actual work for them. Whatever the causes, the fact is senioritis set in early for me. Far too early. And as with our nation’s children, who are growing up too fast and being taught oral sex in social studies (Thanks, Clinton!), my developmental schedule is all thrown off. Now that I’m a senior and should naturally be suffering from senioritis, I find I’m beyond it. Now I actually want to learn.
Believe me, I find it just as strange as you do. But I started this semester with the strange desire to actually make use of my time in constructive and meaningful ways. I thought I would just slack off this semester and take really BS classes, like I did last semester (And for the student looking to take BS classes, by the way, you have no shortage of choices at this university). But a funny thing happened on the way to the couch to watch TV and eat cereal out of the box: I found myself compelled to do things I hadn’t done in years, like take notes, read assignments and stay awake in class.
I think it all comes down to the fact that, as a senior, I’m facing my own academic mortality. Soon I’ll be out on my own, in the “real world,” and I’ll no longer have professors around to tell me that saying quote-unquote and then putting quotation marks around the words is redundant and annoying. I’ll have a job of some sort (hopefully), and I’ll no longer have time to expand my horizons. I’ve been in school for the last 17 years of my life. Isn’t it time I learned something?
And so, when I expected its onset most, senioritis abandoned me. But a funny thing happened on the way to the library to check out reserved materials and take notes on them: I discovered that all the laziness, all the tricks I used to slack off in my years under lady senioritis’ control, have been hard-wired into my brain. I just can’t bring myself to try, no matter how hard I try. Lord knows I want to do work. But my brain is telling me I should be watching whatever syndicated program is on TV right now.
Even if it’s “Seventh Heaven.”
It is, to quote some probably British person, a sticky wicket. In the end, all I can do is my best. I will sit in that classroom, listen attentively and do my homework. I’ll even try to start papers before the morning they’re due. I will do all this because I may not get a chance to do it ever again. So, if you feel the effects of senioritis setting in and you’re only a freshman, don’t panic. It’s fairly chronic, but it’s rarely fatal, and eventually, you’ll recover.
(Editor’s Note: Since Justin was one of the few privileged students who actually got to escape campus this week for religious holidays, the preceding was a previously-written column that he, quite literally, phoned in. He wishes you to know that since the initial writing of this column, his senioritis has returned full-blown, as is the natural order of things. Justin can next be seen early Tuesday morning, frantically writing an eight-page paper due later that day.)
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