Senior year of college is bittersweet. You can’t imagine a life without all of your besties by your side 24/7, you’ll miss sleeping in almost everyday and having Fridays off, you’ll miss having full responsibility and no responsibility all at the same time, but you can’t wait to be done with pointless homework for the rest of your life, spending all of your free time catching up on readings you didn’t do last week, and you can’t wait to have Sundays dedicated to reading Nicholas Spark’s books and watching football only. With all of this lingering over your head, Spring Break at a close, and most likely the weight and anxiety of what the heck you’re going to do after you graduate looming over your shoulders, it’s probably safe to say that most UW-La Crosse seniors are suffering from major senioritis right now. How can you concentrate on 20 pages of dry academic reading and a five to six page paper when you have all of this on your mind? Hopefully these six tips to combating chronic senioritis will help get you through the homestretch…
1. Turn off all social media.
…And stuff your phone under your mattress or put it in another room if you have to—that includes Netflix and other forms of entertainment. Social media is a trap for distractions and procrastination.
2. Focus on what’s due first.
If you think too hard about everything you have due that’s coming up you’ll go crazy and most likely suffer a mental breakdown. Narrow your focus to what’s due that day and the next day. If you have enough momentum after that, proceed to cross things off the list (If you do have momentum, DON’T STOP. This doesn’t happen very often).
3. Focus on doing the bare minimum if you have to.
Try to simplify your life to doing the bare minimum (if you have to). Don’t give yourself such high expectations if you’re feeling overwhelmed. This could only discourage you and your seniorities will most likely only worsen.
4. Create things to look forward to.
Give yourself something to look forward to each day and each weekend. Graduation is still a little too far away to be the light at the end of your tunnel, unfortunately. Tell yourself you’re going to relax with a movie and a glass of wine if you cross everything off the day’s to-do list, and make plans with your friends to go on a bluff hike or paint pottery at All Glazed Up at the end of the week. It’s the little things in life.
5. Get a good night’s sleep…but don’t sleep in too late.
Go to bed early if you can so you feel refreshed in the morning, but don’t oversleep just because you can. Oversleeping is probably one of the worst things you could do for your senioritis. After a certain point, sleeping can only make you more fatigued throughout the day, ultimately decreasing your motivation. For example, do you know that feeling when you wake up at 9am, but decide to go back to sleep just because you don’t have class until 2pm and you don’t have any immediate homework due; Then, when you wake up again it’s because you can’t keep your eyes closed, not the other way around? Yea, me too. This is a big mistake. Try to wake up at the same time each day. Even better, to prepare yourself for the real world in just a short two to three months, try waking up and starting your day at 8am everyday. Then, try to have everything done by 5pm—a regular work day!
6. Create a countdown.
By days AND/or weeks, create a countdown to graduation. Days are long, but weeks fly by. When you see the days and weeks physically dwindling, it’ll create a sigh of relief every time. But don’t forget to sit back and enjoy the rest of your time here at UWL! It’s bittersweet, remember?