Fair warning: it’s probably my fault that I hate it so much because it’s my own fault that I procrastinated so badly and everything, but that doesn’t invalidate my feelings.

Anyway.

Last year was the end of a beautiful era. People who were taking more than 3 AP classes could opt out of the senior project because, clearly, they weren’t slacking academically. They could focus on schoolwork, or they could even do a senior project if they felt compelled to do so.

That rule has since been changed, and the senior project is now a requirement in order for any senior to be able to walk at graduation. I have not heard of anyone who’s glad that the senior project is now mandatory. I have heard of a lot of people participating in activities or events they were going to do anyway, slapping a few pictures in a PowerPoint, and asking their friend’s dad to sign a form so he could count as their mentor.

Look, I get that senioritis can happen and that high schools don’t want an entire grade to completely slack off for a year. I do. But I can wholeheartedly assure you that I never intended to slack off before I had to do the senior project. I also didn’t intend to have multiple anxiety attacks because I was overwhelmed by everything I had to do, but we can’t all get what we want I guess.

It’s even worse because, like many people I know, I could have done something that I could have finished in a week over the summer, but my parents and the teachers approving senior project proposals weren’t accepting “anything that wasn’t intellectually stimulating enough for me.” I promise you that I’m plenty stimulated as it is. My first idea was to write a chapter for a book and have my friend who’s an English major at Texas Tech act as a mentor. That got shot down immediately. Instead, my teacher suggested, why don’t I do a career study in neuroscience? Okay, I thought, I can just research it and compile information in a presentation and get some adult to watch my presentation and give it a thumbs up and they can be my mentor. No problemo.

Problemo.

I pitched the completely reasonable (in my opinion, but what do I know? I’m a stupid kid) plan to my parents, but they wouldn’t have it. I had to find a real neuroscientist to be my mentor. How else was I going to know whether it was accurate at all? And this would be great hands-on experience for when I get a real job, which will be happening before I know it! This was perfect!

So I contacted the neuroscience department at UTD over the summer to ask if anyone there was willing to be my mentor. Turns out, neuroscience professors have better things to do than hang out with high school seniors and chat about their little high school projects. But at least they were pretty nice about letting me down. In desperation, I e-mailed a few neuroscientists at hospitals around here, with only one reply, which was an apologetic rejection. The summer passed and I hadn’t done anything.

Then my mom was talking to her friend and found out that her friend knew a neurosurgeon. He ended up referring me to a neuropsychologist because I implied that I was somewhat more interested in that field, and also probably because he didn’t want to deal with me anymore. This neuropsychologist and I have had comically conflicting schedules because I was usually pretty busy with theatre and she’s pretty busy with, y’know, her job. I know, I was as surprised as you are. There wasn’t an optimal time for us to meet between October and now.

I’m still not sure when we’re going to manage to meet, and all my information is due in about a month. Again, yes, I take an enormous portion of the blame in this situation, but I refuse to take all of it. It’s just plain condescending to assume that all seniors need something to occupy them for the year. If it’s a project you enjoy, chances are you would have done it or something like it anyway. If it’s a project you hate, chances are you just get even more stressed out and resent the school for putting you in that situation, and if it’s a project you don’t care about, you’re wasting your time.

I don’t know why the rules changed between last year and this, but I know that I don’t like it. And I know that most of the senior class doesn’t either.