What used to be an exciting way to end senior year has now become an unwanted and stressful experience. Senior May Term has lost its fun. The May Term will take place over four and a half days, starting on May 25 and ending with project presentations on the night of June 1. The short timeframe itself is off-putting enough to make anyone refuse to participate, not to mention the fact that finals must be completed before May Term begins, leaving students less time to study and earn good grades. 

The complaints don’t stop there. It is evident that the process for idea approval has become more selective each year, diminishing the fun. Students would previously go camping or test the pH of different bodies of water in Minnesota. Some students even got to travel abroad, with no presentation required—these were very low-stress activities. While they are not traditionally academic, they are still enriching by allowing students to destress and learn something about the world as they prepare to leave their hometown. But, now that the selected projects must prove to be academically rigorous, fewer students are taking part in the senior tradition. 

On the flip side, when students choose not to participate in May Term, they continue on with school like normal––finishing their classes, taking finals, and closing out the school year. With AP tests over, there is often nothing left for the teachers to continue teaching. Instead, they opt to create projects or watch movies in class to pass the time, which, while being easy on the brain, leaves many students bored during the final weeks of school. 

With an already sliding senior class of 2022, we need more engaging experiences to look forward to, not boring classes and repetitive finals prep every day for the last two weeks of the school year. A longer and more relaxed May Term would do the trick. 

So, to the administration—please give the seniors some fun, especially after having much of their high school experience washed away due to two years of a pandemic.