I did not do my homework.  I did not study for my test today.  I completely forgot about that project.  What are all of the excuses for not completing all of these tasks?  Senioritis, of course.  But is this excuse exactly valid?

Senioritis is a state of mind which manifests itself in high school seniors towards the end of their high school careers and is used as an excuse to slack off.

Seniors go into their final year of high school fully believing that they will be able to do the minimum amount of work just to slide by in their classes, and somehow, that is ok with them.  I will not deny it. I, too, was one of those people.  I came into senior year with this funny image in my head of me sitting down in a lawn chair instead of a desk, and the teacher handing me a glass of lemonade instead of a term paper assignment.

This vision snapped out of my head pretty quickly when I realized that once colleges accepted me, they would not throw an acceptance party for me and shower me with gifts.  Instead, they would be “checking” in on me every once and a while, looking to make sure my GPA and specific grades were up to par.  One school even openly told me that they do this to see who the slackers are and who the achievers are.

All during senior year, colleges are watching the accepted students’ grades to see who deserves the scholarships and who will do the most with them.  They are not willing to give any leniency to the student who starts to fail a couple of classes because “senioritis has kicked in.”  Especially since senioritis is not a legitimate disease or medically accepted condition.

Senioritis is nothing that your doctor can describe a prescription for.  It is nothing that you have to miss a day of school for, but it can be just as contagious as the flu. If seniors know that fellow classmates are slacking off, the last thing that they want to do is work hard.

What seniors don’t realize about senioritis is that the more it is talked about and used, the longer senior year will seem.  It is like sitting in a car during a long drive and asking the driver how much longer.  Asking this question will only make the drive seem longer and more drawn out.

This doctor is prescribing a medication for senioritis: stop talking about the epidemic and using it as an excuse.  Teachers are cutting back on the work as it is, and they want us to graduate as much as we do.  There is no need to keep complaining to them.  Enjoy these last two months and work hard because we can never get them back.

Amanda Graziano is an Opinion Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.