It does not matter whether you are a junior in high school or a junior in college, but for some reason no matter which one it is, the same feelings resurface. I remember feeling this way in high school during my Junior year; maybe it was because of the workload, maybe it was the stress of having to decide what I need to do with my future, but I applaud junior years for causing the most headache out of any of the other years. Here's to you, junior year!
1. There is much less enthusiasm on the first day of school
Who knows, maybe this is due to the fact that you are 3 years deep and it's too late to turn back, or maybe it's because you know that you only have junior year and some of Senior year to really solidify what it is that you want to do with your life, but getting up from bed on that first day is nothing special. They sometimes say that in order to really feel like you are going to conquer the day, stand in a superman pose for a minute in the morning... Yeah, I can't even get out of bed in time to have an extra minute to spare to do that, so I have to pass.
2. No More "Syllabus Day"
I think that Junior year is really the year when the professors decide that you are officially adults and can read the syllabus on your own time. They really only cover the major points and move on. How dare they?! Don't they know that unless I am spoon-fed the information on that piece of paper, the odds of me reading it fully are slim to none?
I'm sure that some of us have has professors earlier in the previous years who would do the same thing, but it was pretty scattered among who would or who would not take the time to go through the packet of information... It seems that junior year is when it consistently all comes to a halt.
3. What social life?
I bet that you were so used to being able to hang out with your friends whenever you wanted to on the weekends... Well, Junior year yanks that from you as if you were a dog chewing on a $400 pair of shoes. Both in high school and in college, it seems like there is no time to ever fully hang out with your friends because everyone is either studying, sleeping, or sick.
. 
4. Speaking of Friends...
This definitely happened more in high school than in college for me, but Junior year seemed to be the year of the purging of friends out of the 'group' that I would be around. Usually, by the end of the 3rd month, I had made new friends and was not really as close with any of the other people I used to be close with anymore. I don't know if it stems from the lack of social life or the fact that maybe I am creating a new social life of studying and these are the people I just happen to see every day, but something seems to happen around this time that changes the friends entirely.
5. THE WORKLOAD
Am I the only one who notices that junior year seems to be the year of work?! I mean I know that we are another year older and what have you, but why do you have to do us like this? I feel like I have an exam every other week and quizzes every week and projects and homework even throughout my break... MY BREAK. WHO DOES THIS? I swear sometimes the professors all get together to plan this mass torture because as if having all that work was not bad enough, ALL THE DUE DATES ARE THE SAME... Why?
6. Sleep? Nope
Although all throughout school there are many times where we pull all-nighters and attempt to still have our brains functioning for the duration of the day, it seems that junior year is really when you start to do it more often, AND you start to feel the effects. There seems to be a lack of understanding from the professors that something that would take them about an hour to complete will take us about four.
It isn't because we do not know what we are doing at all (well, sometimes) but more so because WE ARE NOT PROFESSORS. They are professors for a reason, teaching us these things because we are not experts on the topic but they are. So of course if you throw a fish back into the water it can swim, but if you throw a giraffe into the ocean there is no way they can swim without a floating device or something.
So, yes, Junior year is not that much different from any other year, but there are some things that just manage to hit so much harder than in other years.
