The third quarter is coming to an end, and with that senior classrooms are increasingly empty, the main lot is less busy and more assignments are being turned in late. 

This can only mean one thing: senioritis is reaching its peak. 

Its main symptoms being “tardiness, absences and lower grades,” according to Merriam-Webster, senioritis is a made-up disease that many attribute to high school seniors’ decline in motivation.

And though it only exists figuratively, it continues to plague EHS seniors every year. 

“I notice that every year around February, more of my seniors start to perform worse and seem to put in less effort,” AP Calculus teacher Mollie Rice said. “This year, however, I observed that many seniors started to care less at the beginning of the year.” 

Dropping challenging classes at the beginning of the year to make her senior year easier, Josie O’Day said that she has felt a major decrease in motivation since the summer. 

“I have had senioritis since August, but now it is worse than ever,” O’Day said. “On my first day of school, I dropped two of my classes because I didn’t want to have anything hard. Even though my workload is easier, I now struggle with the motivation to even come to school.”

O’Day said that because she has already been accepted to college with a scholarship, she doesn’t feel as pressured to be putting her time and effort into high school.

Senior William Bogue agrees, and he said that he has been skipping school “a lot more often” this year. 

“So often, I wake up, think ‘I am already in college so what’s the point of going to school?’ and then fall back asleep,” Bogue said. “It doesn’t matter if I am at school or not; I am still able to get the same grades. At this point in the year, I don’t have much of a reason to come to school.”

With the extra free time seniors get after catching senioritis, some focus on finding passions outside the realms of high school. 

Senior Taylor Wilkerson said that since being admitted to college (and catching senioritis right after), she has been focusing on parts of her life beyond high school.

“I am less focused on academic validation and more focused on the quality of life,” Wilkerson said. “I am looking at my life as a bigger picture. I find myself worthy in other ways, and I am focusing on what I am going to do in this next phase of my life.”

Wilkerson has spent much of her extra time reading, whereas O’Day has been focusing on her passion for ceramics. 

“With the extra time I have from dropping my harder classes, I was able to take more art classes and spend more time on my art,” O’Day said. “This helped me discover what I want to do in my life, and I actually changed my major and now plan to become an art professor. In a way, catching senioritis actually did some good for me.”