There's a great exchange in the movie Office Space that goes like this:
Michael Bolton: "You were supposed to come in on Saturday. What were you doing?"
Peter Gibbons: "Michael, I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything that I thought it could be."
I completely understand why so many of today's college-bound seniors wish they could morph into the high school version of Peter Gibbons. You're tired. You've done the AP classes, SAT prep, college applications, activities, essays, and everything else you're supposed to do to get into college. You really want nothing more than just to relax and do less, maybe even do nothing. I think you deserve that luxury. But you know you just can't do it quite yet.
Every year, some seniors let the party start too early and end up with one or more of their grades plummeting. When that happens, the colleges that have admitted you reserve the right to take back their offers of admission. Then you have to find a new college to go to. It's an awful experience.
So here's my senioritis proposal. Just delay it a little bit. Keep working for another semester, but plan a summer of senioritis, one in which you carve out three months to do whatever you'd like to do.
I'm not saying you necessarily should do nothing for the entire summer. But you could make your summer what YOU wanted it to be. You could get a part-time job with your friends, play guitar in your band, read a few trashy romance novels and still sleep until noon two days a week when you don't have to work. You could take a road trip with your friends. You could finally join that rec basketball league at the gym and just play for fun. You could rent the DVDs for your favorite TV show you never had time to watch and view the entire second season in one weekend.
Having the summer off is nothing new. But what I'm suggesting is that you look at this summer as your reward for everything you did to earn the right to go to whatever college is lucky enough to get you next fall. It will give you an extra something to be excited about and help you finish strong in this one final semester of high school.
Every college in the universe wants its freshmen to show up wide awake and eager to get started on their college careers. One of the best ways to do that is to catch a serious case of senioritis this summer.
Clint says
Excellent advice! This is exactly what I have been planning to do this year.