As defined by Merriam Webster, the term senioritis is described as “an ebbing of motivation and effort by school seniors as evidenced by tardiness, absences and lower grades.” While the seniors’ lack of motivation may be talked about a lot in the hallways at De Soto High School, is it a direct cause from the senioritis phenomenon or just an excuse to be lazy?

For senior Amanda Franklin, senioritis is something that students have to battle with in order to succeed during one’s senior year.

“I think senioritis is real because you’ve already gone through 14 years of school, and you can see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Franklin said. “You know that the end is coming so it is hard to stay motivated and find purpose when you are almost done when it’s the last year of high school forever.”

Senioritis was a phenomenon Franklin thought she would never actually have to deal with, but her last semester at DHS has especially been harder for her to stay driven. 

“Even as a freshman I would hear seniors in the hallway talk about how they never wanted to go to class and how completing homework assignments was a rarity,” Franklin explained. “When I heard those things, I would always think to myself ‘when I am a senior, I don’t think I will really have to deal with senioritis’ but now, it is hard to even find the motivation to show up to class.” 

As for senior Graci Molzen, she believes that shortened schedule and Senior Symposium have played a big role in making seniors apathetic.

“Getting a taste of what it’s like to have a schedule with only two classes a day is so nice because it almost prepares you more for college and what the schedule is like,” Molzen said. “But having fewer classes senior year makes it a lot harder to stay motivated and want to go to class.”

Although some students feel that senioritis actually affects their daily lives, the popularity of the term seniortits has led many to believe that it’s just a reason to slack off.

Senior Adison Reinertsen believes both sides of the senioritis debate but has noticed that senioritis applied to her during junior year too.

“Junior year is known to be the hardest year of high school, so towards the end of the year, I felt very unmotivated to finish my school work,” Reinertsen said. 

While Reinertsen believes that every grade level experiences some type of senioritis, she thinks that senior year takes the cake.

“Senior year just feels different when it comes to a lack of motivation. I think everyone just knows that the end is so close so it’s hard to stay on top of things,” Reinertsen said.

Overall, the seniors at DHS believe senioritis is a real phenomenon that they have to go through and is not just an excuse to slack off on assignments and projects.

“Throughout high school, I have always been a really motivated student, and I never expected senior year would affect my work ethic as much as it has,” Molzen said. “I don’t think senioritis is used as an excuse because it even makes hard workers not have the motivation to do school work.”