With the school year almost three quarters through, an epidemic is hitting students like the plague. This illness is very specific, targeting all students, but hitting those in their senior year especially hard. This disease is vicious, targeting the worst students, the average students, and even the best students.

Yes, now is the time that the first cases of “senioritis” are showing up.

You can easily pick out those students infected. They walk around with bags under their eyes, their hair is a mess, their backs are bent under the weight of their heavy backpacks, and the youthful gleam that is common in their teenager eyes is gone, replaced with a frazzled, tired look.

The unmistakable symptoms begin harmlessly, but worsen and worsen, ultimately resulting in a deadly transcript, featuring a noticeable drop in letter grades, or even the loss of credibility to graduate.

The first symptom is the “tired” factor. The alarm buzzes annoyingly loud each morning around 6 a.m., but instead of waking up and facing the day, students hit the snooze button a number of times, waking up at the last possible second, or not even waking up at all. This causes them to begin to fall into a tardy trend, coming late to first hour, and then sleeping through class. By the time school is adjourned, students can barely drag themselves out of class to their cars, before walking straight into their bedrooms and collapsing on their beds for the remainder of the day.

The second symptom is the “lack of motivation” factor. Students suddenly don’t care anymore. The homework builds and the grades drop, but it has no affect on them. Until the night before the test that is. Only then do students stay up all hours of the night, doing the bare minimum on their homework, just to keep the grades up. But once the test is taken, the cycle begins again, threatening final grades and any chances to graduate. The catch at this point in time is the looming fact that the majority of seniors have already been accepted into a number of colleges, resulting in an even greater loss of motivation to succeed in school.

The third symptom is the “want to give up on life and die” factor. This is where senioritis hits the hardest. These students have been in the system for so long that they no longer resemble students, but robots, under the rule of a ruthless dictator who threatens their sanity every second of the day. These students are past any emotion. Stress has become a lifestyle, and the majority of them are preparing to go prematurely gray.

This is the point in time where only the strong survive. This is where students decide to either stay in school, or stay in bed for the rest of their lives.

But looking past all of the symptoms to the infection, outsiders can see that the cause of the disease is the fact that these students are simply being held back. They are ready to test the waters of adulthood and enter the workforce. They are ready to condemn themselves to four years of ramen noodles while they put themselves through college. They are ready to move on. They are ready to grow up.

There is no cure for senioritis until graduation. It is on this glorious day that the human inside reappears and the light in their eyes returns as a paper is placed into their hands saying, “You have successfully worked the system. Go home.”

Until then, seniors, this is your home stretch. There are a measly three months left in your high school career. Laugh at the system that is holding you captive and push through the muck and sludge of high school. Only then can you truly be cured from the deadly disease of senioritis.

Courtnee Cartwright is a senior at Grantsville High School.