![\"Seniorits2Color\"](\"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernjournal\/files\/2016\/03\/Seniorits2Color.jpg\")
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By: Conner Williams\r\nEditor-in-Chief<\/pre>\nThe disease is spreading at an alarming rate. Nearly 25 percent of all college students have become infected and top-level scientists have yet to develop a cure. Students across the country are exhibiting frightening symptoms, and there doesn\u2019t appear to be any way to treat them. <\/p>\n
This terrifying disease is not one that has appeared in the major news headlines; it\u2019s not Ebola or the swine flu, it\u2019s something much more infectious and threatening. <\/p>\n
Senioritis. <\/p>\n
I know, just seeing the word makes me shudder too. In fact, just writing this very account has caused my symptoms to worsen even more; I\u2019ve had to stop and put my face in my hands in defeat at least a dozen times. That\u2019s right, I am a victim of senioritis, and my case might be one of the worst I\u2019ve seen. <\/p>\n
Senioritis causes extreme feelings of laziness, tardiness (and, often times, complete absence altogether), insomnia and\/or lethargy, sudden alcohol overconsumption, and a complete lack of motivation. The only thing that keeps these symptoms from keeping one completely incapacitated is the debilitating fear of not receiving his or her degree in time, and even that is becoming less and less of a motivating factor. <\/p>\n
In all seriousness though, it\u2019s starting to become a serious problem for me. In a completely honest and conservative estimate, I\u2019ve probably skipped 60 percent of my classes this quarter. Yeah, I get it, I\u2019m a bad student. Whatever. Look, this isn\u2019t a personal shot at my professors (if you\u2019re reading this, know that I think you\u2019re awesome and the work you do is amazing), I just really don\u2019t find much use from going to class. In the increasingly technologically-driven world our educational system thrives in, I don\u2019t see the need to go to class when all materials and information are provided for me online. I simply can\u2019t handle sitting through lectures anymore. <\/p>\n
This is something that I think is a major flaw in our education system. To me, there\u2019s a big difference between gaining an education and going to school. I don\u2019t think the two go hand-in-hand. I\u2019ll be completely honest: I despise school. I don\u2019t believe that the traditional classroom setting is an optimal learning environment, at least for me. I don\u2019t learn well by sitting there listening to someone 30 years my senior talking in monotone to me (Bueller \u2026 Bueller \u2026). I\u2019ll pass. I\u2019d rather just teach myself the material in the comfort of my own home. <\/p>\n
Not to mention the fact that I have to take classes that have absolutely nothing to do with my career just so that I can get a \u201cwell-rounded\u201d liberal arts education (aka: keep students in school longer and suck more money out of them), I just dislike going to class. Students have almost zero input for course curricula and are forced to complete arbitrarily important assignments that usually don\u2019t do much for them; it\u2019s simply one going through the motions so that a professor can have something to grade and then assign a subjective value to a student. And, once again, this is not a shot at my instructors; it\u2019s a shot at our education system as a whole. <\/p>\n
I think this is the root of my senioritis: a lack of a reason to care. Yes, I know my education is important, and I do take it seriously for the most part. But really, why should I care about half the stuff I\u2019m taught? I\u2019m going to have to be trained to do whatever job I end up with anyways, so what\u2019s the point of learning all of this information that I\u2019m just going to forget over spring break? <\/p>\n
I think Peter Gibbons from \u201cOffice Space\u201d said it best: \u201cIt\u2019s not that I\u2019m lazy, it\u2019s that I just don\u2019t care.\u201d So, I ask you, my faithful readers, why should I care? If you feel the need to berate\/celebrate my claims, please contact me. <\/p>\n
Contact the author at journaleditor@wou.edu or follow on Twitter @journalEIC <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The disease is spreading at an alarming rate. Nearly 25 percent of all college students have become infected and top-level scientists have yet to develop a cure. Students across the country are exhibiting frightening symptoms, and there doesn\u2019t appear to be any way to treat them. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":825,"featured_media":3261,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/825"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}