By Lenaia Powell
If you think senioritis is bad, can we talk about junior-itis for a second? Okay, maybe that’s not a real thing– but our juniors are getting ready to face the wrath of senior year, and are about to be plagued with the realities of life heading into the final chapter of their high school careers.
Cooper Smalley summarized the most prominent obstacle for senior year perfectly, stating “…I feel like senioritis is gonna kick in and make an easy year a lot harder. So I think in theory it should be easy but actually, it’s gonna be a lot harder. I’m not gonna want to go to school,” and the other juniors are in agreement, most of them related to the weight of senioritis, but a year early.
Popular classes that the students are planning on taking next year are AP Macroeconomics, Government, and AP Statistics, and AP Literature, while others were excited about taking more fun and “enjoyable” classes. For example, Al Smith is planning on taking more art classes, stating “I miss taking art, I haven’t taken an art class since seventh grade and I took one this year for the first time in a while. Now I’m gonna take– hopefully– AP 2D studio and then ceramics.”
Classes for seniors are fun, sure. As Cooper expressed, “The classes seem kind of cool and I’m excited to not have a lot of them,” Cooper expressed, but there is much more 2019 has to offer for its class. Anaya Nunez is just looking forward to having as little classes as possible at Apopka High School, while Kayla Smith is excited for football season in addition to taking Latin 3. Al expressed his opinion on it the way anyone would at first, “[I’m excited about] Getting out of here! Also… *laughs* not really, I’ve had a pretty good time here. I’m excited to actually feel like I’m getting my life together. Like I feel like a huge mess right now and senior year’s for getting all my sh*t together so I’m excited to see where I’m gonna end up in college and stuff like that,” and that is definitely a shared viewpoint, as Val Pierre also declared, “It’s my year to get my sh*t together ’cause I’ve been slacking for the past three years.”
Fortunately, these students have role models to help guide them in the process of “getting sh*t together”, and they’re called the class of 2018. Lots of students in different classes interact and become good friends, and the juniors are lucky enough to learn how it’s done by them. Al recounted his friend’s experience, “one of my friends Daniel is going to school in new york and it’s wild, like he got into the school he wanted, he’s going to new york, it’s really crazy like he’s studying theatre and stuff, and it’s nice to have like older people who do have their sh*t together, it makes me feel like it’s not so impossible. But I’m also sad to see them go.”
And while saying goodbye to the seniors is going to be a challenge, there are some things that the juniors can’t wait to also bid adieu, “The BACE certification for my medical class, oh my God it was the most stressful part of this year for sure. Like worse than the SAT,” exclaimed Kayla, and Cooper is just glad to have a break from science, “I don’t know. My classes, anatomy is like… I’m ready to be done with science because I’m not taking science next year and I hate science. I don’t hate it I’m just very bad at science and I never understand anything,”. Val appears to be leaving the newspaper because, with almost too much enthusiasm, she declared that she can’t wait to leave it.