Prevent senioritis before it's too late

You've probably read dozens of columns and heard quite a few speeches about providing valuable advice to incoming freshmen. But not only freshmen need advice to guide them through four magical years at Princeton.

The Class of 2006 showed up on campus three short years ago, bombarded with advisers of all sorts. As we moved on to become sophomores and juniors, many of us found older students who served as friends and mentors, helping us navigate our way through majors, eating clubs and course selections. Yet as we return to campus for our fourth year, there is suddenly no one available to give us advice anymore — and many of us are experiencing the first hints of senioritis.

Senioritis is like a disease, and it's emerging slowly in all of us aging members of the Class of 2006. Suddenly, we feel a little bit old out at the street. Frat parties are not as much fun as they used to be. Sophomores and juniors are asking us for advice.

As the first hundred or so emails from recruiters show up in our inboxes and flyers begin to emerge around campus inviting us to explore what lies in our future, we hesitantly begin to discuss boring topics like jobs and grad school.

Senioritis is making us suddenly nostalgic. We talk about our last fall Lawnparties, the last few courses we will take at Princeton, the last time we will go through move-in, and getting through the last few goddamn fire drills. Have no doubt; the nostalgia symptom will only be exacerbated as our senioritis progresses throughout the year.

We are starting to feel a little old. Yet at the same time, we will deny getting old for as long as we possibly can, or as long as Dean Williams and our parents will allow us to. We have pledged to ignore that little voice in our heads that is screaming at us to go to information sessions, rewrite that old resume, write that grad school application and, most of all, begin working on the dreaded T. That little voice keeps nagging, but Lawnparties convince us to drown it away with some champagne and beast. Only then we realize Lawnparties aren't quite as novel as they were when we were sophomores or juniors.

We know that graduation will mark a momentous change in our lives, and that the decisions we make in the next few months will profoundly influence who we will become. Yet we are not so sure we have the tools to embrace all that responsibility. Are we well equipped to face graduation? How do we go about making decisions that determine who we want to be?

So, you may ask why I am writing this column. As a member of the Class of 2006, I certainly am not equipped to provide any advice to those seniors beginning to suffer from senioritis.

This column is a cry for help to other members of the university who do have valuable advice to give us struggling seniors: the graduate students, the professors and the administrators. Graduating will be a shock to our systems, and you have all been through such changes. You have all made life-altering decisions like the ones we are facing today. You have pushed yourselves to the limits of your capabilities, much like our dreaded theses will force us to do as well. We members of the Class of 2006 might be a little scared to come forward and ask for the guidance that you can provide us; we are much more likely to give freshmen advice than to admit that we badly need some ourselves. Yet we need your guidance now more than ever. Reach out to us, before senioritis turns us too cynical and jaded to really listen. Karen Karniol-Tambour is a Wilson School major from Netanya, Israel. She can be reached at karenkt@princeton.edu.