Just as babies are given vaccinations to prevent polio and tetanus, I have taken preventative measures to limit the damage of senioritis .
We all experienced it as we graduated high school. There was a generalized feeling of scholastic apathy. matriculating throughout your class. Like death row with a more pleasant end, you knew what event was guaranteed to take place in your immediate future, graduation, and there was nothing between you and that event except for time.
Classes were a joke, as you already know having been through college classes. You had no doubt accrued a large group of friends, who also lacked any real anchors towards scholastic commitment, that you killed most of your days with. It was a time without purpose, but in no way was it reckless.
Coming into N.C. State, I knew I’d contract the disease again. I knew there’d be a time in four to five years where I’d be over school, but, I also knew that I needed to prepare for it. I secured my GPA, my research, everything before senior year. I even gave myself a final semester of credit-only classes. I was prepared to not care; there would be no damage as there was nothing to lose. Everything was taken care of.
The senioritis we faced leaving college is similar to the wonder years that was high school-I became aware of this fact far too late. I prepared for, and was expecting, a senioritis liken to the common cold. Instead, this year’s senioritis turns out to be a lot more like Ebola.
I have contracted the standard symptom: not wanting to do anything school related except graduate. But the college edition of senioritis offers another symptom: a splash of madness. I was not prepared to experience it myself or see my friends go through this.
When I say a splash of madness, I mean just a splash. I’m not talking about people doing something ridiculous like changing their religious affiliation or going to Chapel Hill-if that happens, it’s all done your sophomore year, but there are some moments you experience that make you scratch your head.
On the surface, it looks like there are only a handful of your friends inundated with the splash of madness. There are the couples who are breaking up, facing the reality of what is coming next, but through a logic-train on par with the Holocaust deniers. There are the friends who are packing up their bags to work at refugee camps after graduation with job offers on the table. There are friends who, on the surface, are obviously going a bit mad.
There are groups of friends, like mine, whose splashes of madness are concealed in the guise of social activities. We thought there’s nothing wrong with taking a boy’s trip to Boston during reading days for exams. “I have school work to do” isn’t an excuse to stay in-people legitimately look at me confused when I try to cite this. A day spent drinking in the front lawn of a house, enticing people to honk so you may drink, doesn’t seem strange at all.
While some play it off a bit better than others, it’s all a bit mad. We’re all losing it a tad-but with good reason. This isn’t high school: We didn’t have an incubation chamber for four years awaiting us. We have an unknown reality in front of us, and with that it’s only natural to go a bit mad.
