Senioritis is a well-known phenomenon relating to burned-out fourth year students not wanting to do any work, and occasionally skipping school to have picnics. (Right?) Well, in case you didn´t know, there is a series of related diseases corresponding to every year of school. I won´t go into detail about all of them, but freshmanitis is usually characterized by trying too hard to get everyone to like you, and sophomoritis usually has symptoms of thinking you´re way better than the freshman and operating under the delusion that senior year will never come. Both of these can be observed in the classic movie, Sixteen Candles
However, here I am going to focus on junioritis, because it is something from which I am currently suffering. Now there are different variations of junioritis (kind of like the flu), depending on whether you spend junior year abroad or on campus, and depending on how hard of classes you´re taking, but a general list of symptoms can be found below:
1) Constant preoccupation with your senior thesis research question
2) Missing all of your friends who are abroad (terribly)
3) Struggling (and mostly failing) to keep in touch with these friends through skype, and then missing them because you did the time conversion wrong.
4) Elation that you finally get to take all of really cool-sounding classes that you´ve been eyeing since before you applied
5) Compulsive avoidance of all subjects that have to do with the future (and at the same time, a compulsive need to say that you´re going to be a senior over and over until it finally starts to sink in)
6) Getting the urge to write on the facebook wall of all of your senior friends who you may never see again, and then not doing it, because it would represent an acknowledgement of the impending separation
7) Feeling cosmically torn between dropping out of school to live in your study abroad country of choice and sell peanuts and finishing your college degree, because Heck! There´s just one year left
8) Rethinking the whole grad school thing when you realize it means
a) taking another standardized test,
b) going through the drama of applications and rejections all over again and
c) deciding what you´re actually going to do with your life
Now, there is no known cure for junioritis, but there are some things you can do to alleviate the symptoms:
1) Baking cookies.
2) Going out with our friends and living in denial of the fact that you won´t always be together
3) Doing homework (well, at least it distracts you for a while, and it has to get done anyway….)
4) Doing background research for your senior thesis…. That kind of feels like progress
5) Watching adorable videos
6) Sleeping (but not too much)
7) Starting a new hobby… because, why not?
Unfortunately, junioritis has still not been recognized as a major public health threat, so very few resources have been dedicated to finding a cure or more effective treatment options, but it is considered to be a developmental disorder, and will likely pass with time. If you or a friend are suffering from junioritis, don´t worry, there is hope. And this time next year, you won´t have to deal with junioritis anymore…. Then you can worry about senioritis.