As hard as it is for me to admit, I am currently seven weeks into my senior year of college. Saying that makes me feel as though time is flying by much too quickly. Another thing that this realization has brought to my attention is that I have come face to face with an old foe: senioritis. I experienced senioritis once during my senior year of high school; my school was on a hybrid learning system due to COVID-19, so I really struggled with staying motivated to finish my senior year strong. I had always been an involved and successful student, but I felt like a completely different person throughout my senior year. Thankfully, I was able to fight back against senioritis back then, but it was not without implementing certain tips and techniques into my life. As I find myself launched back into round two with senioritis, I have been recalling these skills that helped me back then. I decided that I would talk about these tips for other students who might be in the same situation as me. These are some tips that have helped me personally so they might not be applicable to other students; however, I hope they can help at least a little bit.
The first thing I realized is that schoolwork becomes much easier when you do not try to tackle it all at one time. An important project or essay can be extremely overwhelming at first glance, and when I become overwhelmed, I very quickly lose motivation. Breaking the project up into smaller parts to complete bit by bit was a complete game changer for me. I was able to motivate myself to work on each part and I got a large sense of gratification once I finished each part.
The second skill that I implemented into my academic life was creating a schedule in a planner. Now, this is something that I cannot believe I had never done before my senior year of high school, because I could never go back to not using a planner. Seeing all the tasks that I have to complete – both academic and personal – outlined day by day makes everything so much easier to manage. If you really want to, you can even outline tasks in order of importance or by how much you personally want to complete them. The possibilities are endless!
My third tip is to integrate time for breaks when studying or completing assignments. I often found myself so consumed with schoolwork that I would forget to take breaks; if I did not take breaks, though, I did not perform as well and I was miserable. It was a complete lose-lose situation. Once I started taking breaks after completing portions of my work, I found that looking at my work with fresh eyes reinvigorated me and made the material so much more interesting.
I would not have been able to successfully finish my senior year of high school without these tips and I would definitely not be doing as well in my senior year of college if I did not utilize these tips. Despite all of this, I still have some days when I feel senioritis looming over my head and it all feels like too much. However, I know in my heart and my mind that I can do this, and I know that you can do this too. I hope these tips will bring you the same relief they have brought me; bring it on senioritis!