Senioritis has become somewhat of a right of passage for students in their final year of high school. Almost every adult I’ve talked to has asked me the same question: “Do you have senioritis yet?” They would then follow up with stories of their senior year, and all the ways they were lazy and avoided doing work.

Senioritis can take many forms. It can be a student watching TV all day instead of doing schoolwork; it can be a student sleeping instead of doing schoolwork; it can even be students doing other work like outside jobs or volunteer work instead of schoolwork. Basically, senioritis is students avoiding schoolwork to do any other type of activity.

It seems like senioritis is often thought of in a negative way. However, I think senioritis is a well-earned state of mind for students who have worked hard for their whole high school careers. College will be a time that matters a lot academically, and having a period of less mental stress can be healthy, especially at a time like this when we have already sent in applications and transcripts to colleges, and our academics for this semester matter less than previous ones.

Obviously, academics are still important for seniors this semester. A meaningful part of senioritis can be learning how to find a balance between shutting down mentally when it comes to schoolwork and stressing out so much that senior year is not enjoyable. For me, this semester is a lesson in self-discipline, and there are very real consequences. I get to choose how driven I am to succeed, and that is a significant part of what college is all about.

If senioritis is, in fact, inevitable, then it can be either good or bad for students. If I choose to be apathetic and blow off schoolwork all the time, it will have negative effects on my academic life and could hurt my acceptance status with the schools I applied to. There is a freedom that comes along with senioritis, and we can either use it to our advantage or we can take it for granted. The choice is ours.