Senior year is the most anticipated year of high school. You are the oldest students on campus, almost an adult, almost done with high school and about to enter the next chapter of your life. However, the excitement for who you will be in the near future is quickly overshadowed by the harsh realities of senior year.
The phrase “senioritis” is thrown around constantly, and it refers to not having the desire to attend class or do work simply because you are a senior. Yet, so far, it is impossible to have senioritis with the constant stream of work, deadlines and stress.
We are not the only school struggling with this.
Editor in Chief of The Catalyst, Notre Dame High School in California’s student newspaper, Mia Muzzi polled her student body. “In a poll sent to the senior class, of which 65 seniors answered, 91% said they experienced an emotional breakdown this year due to workloads,” Muzzi wrote.
We have to be on top of all potential college deadlines, revising our essays, attending workshops and keeping up with current school work.
The general senior class consensus is that we live under a constant fear that we aren’t doing something we are meant to be. There is a constant pit in your chest demanding that you should be working on your applications or meeting with your counselor, even when you are completely exhausted and in need of a quiet moment to relax.
But again, we are not the only school. School counselors nationwide are having trouble keeping up with the surge of overwhelmed students. Minnesota School Counselor, Jessica Kirschner, spoke to the National Education Association Today (neaToday) about this.
“Kids can’t plan a crisis or anticipate those extra hard days,” Kirschner says. “When you have five or 10 kids needing support, then there is not enough of me to go around and meet those needs of every single kid immediately,” Kirshner told neaToday.
In the movies seniors are leaving school whenever they want, going out all day on the weekends and making core memories. We can’t go out all day on the weekends because we have a test on Monday, a project due on Tuesday, a socratic seminar on Wednesday and other homework on top of that. This doesn’t leave much time for core memories.
Heavy workloads, in a lot of ways, strips us of the “high school experience” with the unattainable work standards we are held to. Yes, we have a typical movie-like homecoming game and dance, but we also have an incredibly competitive student body that makes you feel like any down time is time you should be spending “beefing up” your resume.
I understand that these are just the facts of life, but this is our last year before the reality of the real world and independence kick in. At what point do we get to stop, take a breath and just be normal teenagers. Staples should implement more no homework weekends so students actually have time to relax and decompress.
