High school academic suicide...bad?

[The Lurker]

In the past few months following the start of my senior year of high school, my attitude towards school and performing well in class has turned for the worse. Don't get me wrong, I've been suffering from "senioritis" and a poor work ethic for well over half of my school career, though I somehow manage to pull through each year with at least a 2.75 GPA or so. Lately my grades are slipping. I have absolutely zero interest in 4 out of 5 of my classes, AP Biology being the only one to actually provide some captivating material (I love laboratory classes, and I already took AP Chemistry last year). I've just grown so unbelievably worn from the barrage of menial, mindless assignments and busy-work, and trying desperately not to space off every minute in a class presenting material I already know, material I've determined to be essentially useless to my future, or material I simply don't give a shit about. Thinking about it sometimes literally makes me feel ill.

Now, I've already been accepted to a couple of universities (probably because of my 30 on the ACT over my shit-tacular grades), but the reason I worry about this is that I'm paranoid that they will rescind my acceptance should my grades slip too low, and then I'll pretty much be fucked. Fortunately I'm a good test-taker; indeed for years my grades have basically hinged on weighted test scores and exam scores, but I've just seemed to have lost all ambition...and it's too nerve-wracking sometimes to know that a single test can make the difference between passing and failing a class.

I just don't know what to do anymore. I've lost all of my academic ambition even though my future depends on it. I've reached a level of loathing for high school I never thought I'd experience.

 

[phantome]

ahh this could have been written by me
in all honesty, the only way that I manage to keep my fairly good average is by doing homework and doing good on tests.
and you would be surprised how much hw can kill your grade >.<
oh and i don't bother paying attention in classes. the material there is too dull, and the way the teachers present it doesn't make it much more exciting either =/
I go home and spend bout 5 minutes reviewing what we did for each class.
and by doing all that I'm getting mostly As.
(well thats dropped recently cuz i've been lacking motivation, but that's been improving)
good luck to you =]
and good job on the ACTs

 

[Trebuchet]

Just get through it. Accept being bored and get good grades this last semester. Sure it is hard, but you can obviously do it.

College is worth it. It is so much better than high school. I guarantee you will find something in college to get you fired up, personally if not academically. Future you in college will thank you. If you have to find a study partner, or promise yourself treats if you finish assignments, do it.

 

[warryer]

You won't be fucked if you don't put in the work, you simply limit your choices. And you seemed to have made a decision about what you want to do.

I think the saying is: you can't have your cake and eat it too

If you are anything like me college is going to be a shock. You still have to take your gen-eds. And you will be responsible for teaching yourself the understanding behind the material. Professors in college only lecture about the basic ideas.

If you are willing to put in the work you can accomplish anything.

P.S. If you choose to smoke weed make sure you don't do it 'til AFTER you get your shit done. I learned this the hard way.

 

[Latro]

I will say that one problem with senioritis that I've experienced (I'm in my second year at university) is that you pick up habits, and they become hard to break. What work you do complete you procrastinate, and you manage to make yourself willing to not complete some work. If only because of that, I'd try to resist the urge to commit academic suicide in HS, because it will be hard to bounce yourself back from it even if you get into university.

Also, universities get your final transcript, and they CAN kick you out if they don't like it.

And you will be responsible for teaching yourself the understanding behind the material. Professors in college only lecture about the basic ideas.

Exact opposite of my experience. I go to lecture and I learn the material, pretty much. I almost never study outside of class beyond homework assignments. I almost never read any of the notes that I take after I take them either.

 

[The Lurker]

Thank you for your responses.

I'll admit that when I posted this I was suffering from pretty severe lack of sleep, which usually amplifies by several times any stress/depression I may be experiencing at the time. After a nice sleep and some reevaluating and rethinking, my situation isn't quite as bad as I've made it out to be, though it doesn't mean I'm not monumentally bored in school. :P

I've heard from a lot of people, now including some of you guys, that college is definitely better than high school, and its one of the few things that I actually look forward to right now. Perhaps it was getting accepted to a college that made me lose whatever shred of ambition I had...regardless I know I need to gain at least some of it back. Unfortunately, finding ambition, especially towards school, is something I've seriously struggled with for years now. Up until about the 7th grade, school was so effortless for me that I only needed to do so much as raise a finger and I'd get excellent grades. I never developed the good work habits necessary, and even now those old habits still stick with me, albeit in a more diminished form; I do manage to improve my work ethic at least a little bit every year. The boredom is probably the biggest obstacle. I know that I can work feverishly on something that I care about or am at least interested in.

Time to grin and bear it, I guess.