Senior Year Struggles

Four years ago, it was unimaginable that school could get any more stressful than the first quarter of freshman year. Somehow, we got through four years of finals, projects, and late night study sessions and we can see that bachelor’s degree at the end of the road. Now that it’s year four, what do we have to do to keep ourselves strong during our last stretch?

“It’s starting to get real,” said fourth year CSUSB student Nhi Nyguen. “I’m having to look at grad schools more seriously now and I know there’s no room for error this time around. I think the realization of this is our last year adds the extra stress on top of everything else.”

Senior year can bring a whole slew of new things that seemingly pop up out of nowhere. For example, one second you are worrying about your class notes that are due and then you are told you have to turn in your grad-check by a certain date.

“Usually you are just focused on school work and tests,” stated CSUSB senior Gio Gonzalez. “I turned in my grad check on the last day for the deadline, and now I have to apply for my graduation date and worry about schoolwork on top of it all.”

After you’ve gone through three years of college, you would think that you have the system down and that senior year can’t possibly be any harder.

Senior year isn’t necessarily harder curriculum-wise; it just starts to become mentally stressful and it raises your anxiety level. Last minute study guides are put to the side because your senior portfolio needs to be made. Community service hours have to be submitted instead of sending in that research paper at the last second.

“I’ve noticed that I’m at school much later than ever before,” said fourth year transfer student Bryan Giron. “I usually try to stay at school because I know if I’m at home, I won’t get the work done. At my old college, I would leave class and go straight home, but now I have so much extra stuff to do that I am stuck at school until it’s dark.”

CSUSB offers numerous resources to help students who are struggling with finishing senior year tasks.  The campus also offers senior seminars to help answer any of the questions you have about commencement, senior projects, and graduating. You can also visit advisors who are more than happy to get you the information you need.

We were warned about how stressful college would be, but I don’t think we realized how bad it could get.

If you can get through senior year, you should feel accomplished, not just because of what you’ve done, but also because of the hard work it took to get to this point.