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The Free Press - Feature
TURNS OUT TO BE BURNOUT Academic burnout affects many, especially seniors, resulting in “senioritis”
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ccording to a poll from @fsjournalism on Instagram, 94% of Free State students have experienced academic burnout. Normally towards the final stretch of the year, students want to leap into summer, but overwhelming workloads pile up. Seniors tend to get hit the hardest when it comes to academic burnout. Most have spent four years in the same building, and senior Naheen Jamal is ready to move on. Whether it’s college plans or end of year goodbyes, “senioritis” is talked about amongst students. Jamal is one of many who believes her senior schedule has made it even more difficult to get work done.
“Honestly, I come to school and I zone out all day,” Jamal said. “I like having the library’s quiet workspaces, but I feel like every time I’m at school, I’m put into autopilot mode.”
Story by Phoebe Morris
“We haven’t had as much time with our community, especially since high school is one of the most essential parts of your life in terms of learning social skills,” Jamal said. While the pandemic may play a huge part, counselor Marc Conover explains academic burnout as multiple “to-do” lists overlapping each other. Students tend to see every stressful task at the same time, instead of focusing on the present moment. This leads to a loss of energy and many students ultimately give up. “For all of those cases, it’s important for students to stay present and focus on one thing at a time, while other people will look at their assignments for the whole semester,” Conover said. Stressing about multiple classes takes time away from sitting down and actually completing each assignment. But, for picking out classes, students may not realize the amount of work needed from each one. And it allows limited time for extracurriculars outside of school.
Compared to last year, seniors aren’t allowed as much independent studying time. Jamal preferred the extra homework blocks because the school gave her plenty of time to get all the work done. Though, this year students only have 30 mins of ECT to catch up on their sometimes heavy workload. “I wish somebody had told me not to take as many classes because when I was a junior full of energy,”Jamal said. “Nobody told me I was going to get hit in the face with a pile of bricks.” The pandemic paused student to teacher interactions and limited school activities. Online learning created a disruption in schools academic abilities, but more importantly their social skills.
Extracurricular work and activities can lead to students feeling overwhelmed by their academic demands. Junior Rachel Bruffett sometimes feels overworked when having loads of homework and studying for upcoming tests. “During the week it’s just really fast paced and I only get to recover over the weekend, then do it all over again,” Bruffett said. Photo by Ashanti Riccardo