Senior year is what every high schooler looks forward to. It’s the year of lasts: last homecoming and prom, last year to watch Friday night football games, and most importantly the last year to be with your friends before everyone goes in different directions. And everyone says senior year is easy right? Well, not exactly. There’s a lot that goes into your senior year which is why seniors need a break.

Let’s start off with the largest problem: class schedules. It’s your 4th year in high school and you’re still taking 8 classes, 7 if you’re lucky. Most likely, you don’t really even need all of those 8 classes. I know for a fact, that I truly do not need 4 out of my 8 classes. Technically, I only need my core classes to graduate.

I understand the graduate profile, and why they want us to have just as many electives as core classes. It’s a respectful factor to have, and I can’t imagine not being in newspaper and art this year. But I feel like towards the end of high school, this only brings about problems. Seniors are overwhelmed, antsy, and really just tired of being at school all day. As a senior, you’re in one of two boats: 1. You’re taking a million AP classes and have no time to do anything and are stressed out of your mind, or 2. You’re taking it easy and find yourself constantly questioning why you have to be here for a full day, sitting in classes that you don’t need to graduate.

Both situations come with issues.

When a student is taking a majority of AP classes, obviously most of their time is going to be taken up with work. You are flooded with homework, projects, tests and quizzes to study for. For example, I have had friends this year who have had to skip a day of school just to catch up on work and finish assignments, because they don’t get enough time after school to do it and because they simply just have way too much to do.

When a student has a lighter load, they are most likely just sitting in classes that they don’t necessarily have a reason to be in. For the most part, they try to find electives that are easier and can just hang out in. Even though this shouldn’t really be a problem, it actually is. It doesn’t make sense to sit in a class and not do anything. Why even have to take a class like that?

On top of having to go to school for 8 periods, seniors have to worry about applying to college, taking college visits, finishing up SAT and ACT tests, making a college decision… and a lot more. I can only imagine the amount of pressure that would decrease if we were allowed to get a class off (or two), or have classes during the day to help us out.

There are ways to get an off period or two senior year. For starters, you can take a career prep class that allows students to get their 8th period off to go to work. Of course, you’ll have to have a job year round and meet the minimum requirement of 10 work hours a week. Another way to get an off period (even though this isn’t guaranteed) is to take all three dual-credit classes, and you may have an off period due to having two classes in one period. Therefore, if you had two dual-credit classes in a single period, you would have nine total classes a day. So, the counselors would allow an off period so a student would have a normal, 8 period day.

One idea I have is for the school to consider new classes to benefit seniors for their futures. They could create study halls, a class to help with college apps, or even ACT/SAT prep classes to take in the day. I understand that the school has had problems with study halls in the past, and have never had ACT/SAT prep classes during school, but I know that if we did it would make a positive difference.

Even though I’m sure those classes don’t really sound that appealing to certain students, others would appreciate them very much. I would prefer to be in a study hall to get my homework done in, rather than be in an elective that just gives me busy work. Or to even take an ACT/SAT prep class during the day, every single day. That would provide constant studying and prep for students, and ultimately improvement on scores. These classes could be the first semester, and have alternatives the second semester.

Even though these suggestions are a long shot, it would be pretty cool to have these options in the future.