Senioritis: A Temporary but Real Affliction

It’s nearing the end of the fall semester. The crunch is on. Panic has set in. You’re pulling out your hair. Essentially you have become a hermit. Books and papers scatter your bed, floor, desk, and back seat of your car. Time is escaping you. If it wasn’t for that jumbo size box of individually packed packets of Ramen noodles, you’d have lost consciousness from hunger two days ago. Laundry piles high in the corner of your room. You’re only spending money when it is absolutely necessary, being when you need booze to forget your sorrows.

Being a student during this time in general is hard, but being a senior is agony. Not only are we worried about finishing the semester strong, we are stressing about what comes after. We are faced with the reality of the real world and we are struck with terror. People are asking us what we are going to do after we graduate and though we say what we always say, we are just thinking in our heads “please let me not end up back at my parent’s place. I would rather flip burgers.”

That’s how hopeless we feel right about now. Even though we are about to be done, having been prepared to have an adult job in the area we just spent four years drudging through, we are very much aware that we may not find work, may have to move back in with our parents, and may end up with the very job we went to college trying to avoid.

And that is the tragedy of it. It is possible that despite the years spent, the tears shed, the countless hours studying, the many sleepless nights, the hunger… the struggle, we may not even get a job that we love, or even like. Not only that, we have the black cloud above our heads of the loans we have to pay back after we graduate, hoping that the president decides to just wipe away all student debt by then.

Each class feels like a mini marathon, leaving you lethargic and wanting to just do nothing. This is common though, it even has a name, senioritis. Eventually we all get it. Reaching that point of sheer exhaustion from the work load, stress from thoughts of the future, and dealing with friends who are also going through the same thing, we just want to give up, turn it, peace out. That is not an option though, so we persevere.

Even though our professors went through the same struggle as us they seem to have drawn a veil over the memory, leaving us with far more work than should be legal. It really should be illegal to have three term papers due in the same week. Professors don’t think about how they are just one of often four to five other professors that have assigned something to be done over the weekend that is due on Monday or Tuesday. They think that their work is our only responsibility and that we have no social lives.

Oh, it’s your best friend’s going away party Saturday? You’ll see them later, make sure to get that project done. Uh, so you’re experiencing severe stomach pain? Buck up, get that group assignment completed and turned in by 8 a.m., even though you were given the instructions later than expected. Sorry your grandma is in the hospital, can you go see her? Not unless you want to have 10 points deducted off your paper from turning it in late.

It is as though everything that could go wrong is going wrong at that. Your printer stopped working. Your cat back home is sick. Your roommate threw up in your car while you were kind enough to be the designated driver on game day. Your significant other is thinking about moving halfway across the world after graduation. Your siblings are arguing and you’re stuck in the middle playing mediator. You dropped your phone in the toilet. You stupidly stood at that taco stand half an hour before an exam, knowing 25 cents seemed too good to be true.

Chances are your about to fail that one class that is only offered in the fall for your major, and all your advisor does is shake their head telling you to study hard for that final. Oh, and by the way, did you know that other class, the one you need to graduate, won’t be offered this spring? And that’s when you lose it.

You consider your options. Being a stripper sounds like an alternative to this mess, but then you remember you live in the capitol and capitols don’t have strip clubs. Then you consider being a nomad wandering the deserts with nothing but a knapsack and your trusty steed, realizing only moments later you have no steed, trusty or otherwise.

Crestfallen you take a deep breath. Allowing yourself two days to wallow, truly wallow, you binge on chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and watch three whole seasons of some Netflix Original. Having reached your rock bottom you then pull yourself up, shake off the anxiety, and tell yourself “you got this!” because you are not a quitter, and you’d feel really stupid for dropping out of college with only one semester left.