We’re almost to the finish line. Less than two months left of school and we’re all screeching into the home plate, running that final yard, shaking our hips to keep the hula hoop from collapsing. 

I don’t know a thing about sports, so I assume all of these activities are exhausting. But not as much as senior year fatigue.

Some days, I’m overwhelmed with self-pride at having completed four years of college. I picture myself looking like Elle Woods at her Harvard graduation or visualize a world where I jet off to Paris post-grad and write a screenplay in some European cottage. I have days where I’m filled with so much excitement — so eager to just start my life in entertainment, tell stories and learn.

Other days I lay in bed with “I’m too young for this” back pain, drinking my second cup of morning coffee, drained from living a much-less-than-normal pandemic life and wondering how I can pull myself together to be on camera for just one three-hour class.

Here are a few tell tale signs that you, too, have developed a case of senioritis:

1. You keep a long to-do list that you can’t seem to conquer. 

It may feel like some form of witchcraft that the tasks somehow keep piling up, but every time you check one item off, another is added and you fall down the dark tunnel of to-do’s.

2. You keep making cups of coffee, convincing yourself it will give you energy to actually get work done. 

There’s nothing quite like sitting down to work and thinking, “Hey, a cup of coffee might wake me up a bit or help me focus.” But then there you are, sipping on your second and third cup while still scrolling through LinkedIn. You are convincing yourself you’re job searching. In reality, you’re just reading posts about other people having jobs. 

3. You have convinced yourself that self-care is productive. 

We all know that a good amount of self-care is healthy for anyone and helps to keep us sane in hard times. But how many face masks, body scrubs or movie days am I going to have until I feel that I have sufficiently cared for myself in order to do work? Let’s call it what it is: I’m procrastinating.

4. You have turned off your camera during Zoom class to have a little cry as a treat at least once.

If you have ever turned off your camera in class to cry for a hot minute, you may be entitled to compensation. 

There are so many moments when I just cannot go on and feel utterly hopeless staring at a screen. I have gotten good at plastering a smile on my face the second I get called on, like nothing happened at all. 

5. You watch TikTok to forget.

If you have found yourself drowning in a sea of videos you aren’t even sure why you’re watching or how you got there, you are definitely exhibiting symptoms of senioritis. 

6. Did I mention procrastinating?

Somehow, no matter how hard you try, you cannot seem to give yourself enough time to finish your work. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that no one verbally tells you anything in person anymore and you have to check Canvas or Google Drive or your email inbox — whichever platform your professor chooses. Or maybe you’ve just got senioritis.

7. You want to just start your life already.

Here’s a symptom that feels actually positive. You want to jump into life, take all the things you learned from school and your lived experience and just go for it. You’re like a little kid who just got a new toy and doesn’t want to fully read the directions, so you put in the batteries and hope for the best. 

We’re on the last few pages of the owner’s manual and life is waiting for us. I don’t know if there’s an equivalent to senioritis — perhaps a quarter-life crisis — but whatever it is, class of 2021, we’re ready for what’s on the other side.