The Home Stretch: How I Plan to Avoid Senioritis
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It is now winter break, which means that the first semester of the school year is just about over. Numerous college acceptances have been sent out, breaths of relief have been released, and many students are now ready to coast through the second semester until graduation. Admittedly, it’s hard not to get in a relaxed mindset after being accepted to college; you worked your hardest to get the GPA and test scores that you wanted, and you deserve a bit of loosening up, right? The fact of the matter is that it’s one thing to ease up on yourself now that you’ve crossed a major bridge and another thing to fall into a slump where you begin to slack off in your academics. The latter is a prospect that should make you uneasy. It definitely makes me uncomfortable, so here are the ways I plan to avoid senioritis and finish out my senior year with a bang!
Making Small Goals for Myself
In order to keep myself from losing motivation throughout the rest of my senior year, I have started making reachable goals that I can accomplish and feel proud of. For example, I am now aspiring to make a high A in my AP Probability and Statistics course instead of the lower-range A that I usually get. It’s nothing major, but it gives me something to work towards that will make me feel happy in the end. By creating these little objectives, I can ensure that I will not lose interest in my classes and will continue to try my very hardest.
Staying Organized
Organization is a huge part of my life that keeps me driven all the way up until the finish line. In school, I stay organized by using a nice eye-catching planner and colorful pens to make sure I remember all of my assignments. Before I used a planner I felt like I was stumbling through my academics, but now it’s smooth sailing and I am always eager to cross off every item that I write down. Even now, during break, I use my planner to plan out my schedule for each day so that I can stay productive while I’m not in school and keep up with scholarship deadlines. It keeps both my mind and my goals in check, and I cannot recommend to you enough that you should get a planner as a first step to being organized and staying motivated!
A messy backpack, locker, or desk can also lead to a decrease in motivation, for as crumpled papers pile up you’ll continue to procrastinate in cleaning and have a disorganized mind as a result. By keeping everything in order, from assignments to permission forms, you will be on the top of your game when it comes to all aspects of your life!
Remembering That Not Everything is Final
I might be a bit paranoid, but even the slightest prospect of having my college acceptances revoked is enough to scare me into doing the best that I can. Senioritis hits some students that hard, though, and they can be threatened if their grades slip past a certain point. In general, just knowing that my guidance counselor has to send mid-year and final reports on my grades to colleges, forces me to snap out of any state of stagnation I am in and keeps me running with my eyes on the prize. It’s important to remember that colleges don’t just accept you and forget about you until your enroll, and instead continue to monitor your grades and make sure that you don’t slip up.
Thinking About the Future
Now that I’ve reached the home stretch of my high school career, I’ve been putting a lot of thought into the future. I think about how hard I’ve worked to get to this point and how I don’t want to diminish that by slacking off now. Furthermore, I don’t want to set a precedent for my freshman year of college, which I am now counting down the days to in pure excitement. If I don’t put in my best effort now, who knows what I’ll be like when I start college next year? You do not want to go into college feeling like you can’t try your hardest, so I recommend keeping your future in mind as you finish up your senior year. A strong conclusion to it will practically guarantee a strong beginning to the next chapter in your life, and if you invent your best self now, you’ll definitely shine bright later in your higher education.
I plan to follow through with all of these points so that I don’t become a victim of senioritis, and I know that you can too! It may seem tiring to trudge through your responsibilities when all you want to do is coast until graduation, but your last semester in high school is just as important as the previous ones. It’s now or never; you only get one shot at having a great senior year, so make sure that you make it the best that you can!
