First semester has come and gone; we’ve taken our finals, submitted our last college apps, and enjoyed every minute of our winter break. So with that all behind us, it leaves one large obstacle between high school seniors and true freedom: second semester. Now, to an outsider, this may seem like a simple thing to conquer, however, this outsider would be very, very wrong.

It is easy to look at first semester and think, “Well it’s the exact same as second semester, right?” This could not be further from the truth. First semester is arguably the most stressful time in a high school student’s life. It is filled with college apps and last minute ACT/SAT prep and maintaining grades so that any college that may accept you will not end up rescinding your letter of acceptance. First semester is also full of a significant number of “lasts.” You have your “last first day of school,” your “last homecoming,” your “last football game,” and so many others unique to students everywhere.

So when second semester rolls around, and the lasts keep coming, things just keep getting harder. The idea that everything is so final frightens our young minds. Knowing that we only have one more chance to do so many things only adds pressure on to students who are already feeling immense amounts of stress from the waiting game that is the college process. So much emphasis is placed on small things like having the prettiest prom dress and the cutest prom date. It matters so much to have the most adventurous and spontaneous nights out with friends on the weekends.

But realistically, seniors have just lost all sense of motivation when it comes to the second semester. After first semester has ended, the hardest thing to a second-semester senior (an SSS if you will) is to simply make it to school at all. “But we aren’t even doing anything today! It’s not an important class or anything,” cry out seniors across the country in an attempt to avoid going to classes they dislike. None of it really matters to us, we just wanna finish out the year so we can move on to our newest endeavor. People stop putting effort into how they look at school, and they care more about getting home to take their afternoon nap than they do about doing well on tests and quizzes.

Second semester also leaves seniors with an amount of free time so large and unseen before it acts as a foreign concept. My friends and I are able to spend hours at the gym after school to work on our “Coachella bodies.” We get to go out to dinner with each other on school nights which used to only happen for birthdays and class nights. Teens flock to malls and restaurants in search of part-time jobs to gain some sort of self-sufficiency before heading off on our own. We are willing to do pretty much anything to fill up our free time.

For myself, it has only been four days of our second semester and I already feel detached from my school. Of course, everyone is looking forward to making memories and finishing out the year together, but in the meantime, we’re losing our minds trying to stay busy and motivated. While there are numerous struggles for seniors in high school, second semester is easily the most overlooked and difficult to overcome.