With high school winding down, I’ve been thinking a lot about Senioritis.

Senioritis makes sense, and I think too many people forget that. I find myself now afflicted perhaps because Foothill has done its job of empowering the quest for higher education all-too-well.

I’ve heard all four years of this brief stay, that my time here is leading me to be further educated in an ever higher institution of learning and find economic security and bring nice statistics for everyone involved and so on and so forth, which is all wonderful and believable.

Through four years of immersive participation in highly beneficial clubs like Speech and Debate, in addition to classes taught by the very same coaches, I’ve been guided and empowered to a future filled with a continued passion for knowledge.

College should, hopefully, feel like a bold extension of the same path these teachers have set me on. I’m excited for the rigorous and challenging atmosphere of learning that college has to offer because they’ve made that same atmosphere so enjoyable. (So what I’m also saying is that you all should join Speech and Debate). 

For me, Senioritis, and that glorious escape to college, is the longing for that path while you have no choice but to march down another path.

This is because I am firmly convinced high school students are at times incapable of profiting, on balance, from being a high school student. It empowers us (some high schools more than others) to crave more than what it can possibly offer, and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

When Senioritis begins to set in — at least, speaking from personal experience — it’s not from being fed up with learning or meaningful hard work. It’s the absence (again, on balance) of it. It’s from the, perhaps misguided, search for better options of study and growth than are available to you.

The pain of Senioritis has came from the knowledge that being honest about it wouldn’t make a lot of wonderful people happy. Young adults can find fault in a lot of things, not excluding their own unavoidable reactions to things they have no choice but to live with.

One unimpeachable truth about much of high school, as it now exists for me, is that it often feels more like an institution holding you back than setting you free.

I’m as ready to leave high school as I am only because it’s done such a wonderful job of getting me excited and prepared to leave it.

I honestly think that for some, this is the best it can possibly do.