By Grace Stewart
Senioritis: “an ebbing of motivation and effort by school seniors as evidenced by tardiness, absences and lower grades.”
Is it a myth? Coming from a senior, the answer is “No.” Once you step onto that senior turf at school, you immediately want to just stop everything and leave for college/work/military — anything!
From writing that 500 word essay to plugging in your SAT scores, seniors just want to be done with it all and leave Beaufort to move onto bigger and better things. Every one of us yearn to arrive at school next year, wherever it may be, and know that we are now capable of being responsible adults and prepping for college courses on our own.
Coming from a senior at Beaufort Academy, it is a little annoying to hear last year’s visiting graduates talk about how amazing college is and to see all of the pictures they are tagged in on Facebook and Instagram. Don’t get me wrong, we love the class of 2012, but it is that one more year that the class of 2013 has to wait to get to that point.
One benefit of being so close to that grade is having people to talk to about knowing what we need to accomplish in order to survive our first year at college. I already was reassured from a freshman at Clemson University that AP biology is indeed going to be an asset next year, rather than thinking of it as that tough sixth period class.
To all of the underclassmen out there, believe me when I say that high school will fly by and you will be a senior before you know it. I know that this seems a far off bit of advice, but once you smile for that camera on senior portrait day in August, you will soon come to the realization that the last three years have gone by so quickly. I have a sister in the ninth grade, even she didn’t believe me when I told her this at the beginning of the school year. But as I have gone through my last football game, my last fall dance and my last fall festival over the last past three months, she has seen that she needs to relish each and  every day of high school because before she knows it, she’ll start her own parade of “lasts.”
So now what to do? I still have two-thirds of the year to go as a senior and it is not until June 1 that I will don my cap and gown and collect my diploma. As my teachers say, I have to buckle down and “keep on trucking” because colleges can always take away your acceptance if they see that you have been infected with falling grades due to senioritis.
I think for now, I will be in the moment — enjoying the rest of my “lasts” before I move on to a new set of “firsts.”
Grace Stewart is a senior at Beaufort Academy who will be contributing biweekly columns about student life.