Many students look forward to the college experience. They want to take in each and every moment of it. However, there are also students that want to shorten this time by graduating early for a multitude of reasons. The main reasons being to save time and money (a significant amount of money I must say)!
A typical undergraduate college degree is expected to be completed in 4 years, but many students take as long as 6 years or as little as 3 years.
I personally completed college in 4 years, but only took classes for three years. After my sophomore year, I took a whole year to do a full-time internship. Let me tell you, this was one of the wisest decisions I have made in my life. I have outlined why this turned out to be a smart decision later in this article.
I am going to list out all the advantages and some disadvantages that I came across from personal experience and from my research about graduating early.
Is Graduating Early The Right Choice For You?
Ask yourself the following questions:
- Are you responsible enough to plan out all your three years and stick to that plan?
- Are you absolutely sure about your major?
- Do you already have AP credits?
- Are you okay with missing out on some social college experiences?
- Are you okay with having to work much harder than your peers?
- Do you have the means to get through the three years without being able to work a job during school?
- Are you okay with doing summer school?
If you can answer “yes” to most of the above questions, graduating early might be the right decision for you. From personal experience, I recommend it 100%. Now, let’s discuss the advantages, the disadvantages, and the steps to actually execute your decision.
The Advantages
1. Save Some Moolah
According to Forbes, You can save an average of $42,419 at a private university or $18,943 at a state university if you complete your degree in three years instead of four. Plus, the money you will save from not paying for a dorm or apartment.
Not only you will save money from tuition and board but you will actually make money during that extra year from whatever career path you decide to pursue. Therefore, if graduating with as little debt as possible is your primary goal, graduating early is a no-brainer.
2. Same Time
At such a young age, saving an entire year can prove to be very fruitful. You can get out in the real world one year early. You have the choice to start earning money and start paying off student loans one year early. The earned money can then be invested one year early and get more time to grow in the market. Basically, you get to start your professional life early and start applying your knowledge.
If you complete an undergraduate degree in a shorter period of time, you can allow yourself more time to complete graduate courses, do research, and explore your interests more thoroughly in graduate school.
The Mindset
Now that you know the advantages of graduating early, It’s very important you go in with the right mindset and realistic expectations.
Of course, it will not be as easy as graduating in 4 years. You will have to make some sacrifices on the way. However, you definitely can complete your undergraduate degree in 3 years while experiencing the things that matter to you and compromising on the college experiences that you don’t care as much about.
With the right mindset and expectations, you can complete all your classes in 3 years even if you are a pre-med or pre-law student.
You will have to keep your eyes on the price, prioritize your time appropriately, plan ahead, and be organized. It is not for the faint of heart; be ready for some long nights, lost weekends, fewer outings, and no long summer vacations.
The Disadvantages
You can imagine that You will have less time for social activities. After all, you are trying to fit in two semesters’ worth of extra classes in three years. It means taking 4-6 extra credit hours per semester. Remember that the rule of thumb is:
“For Every 1 college credit hour, there are 3 hours of out-of-class workload. Taking 4-6 extra credit hours means spending 12-18 extra hours per week studying.”
Brght light minds
If your school has a limit on how many credit hours you can take per semester, you might even have to take summer classes to make up for it. Fortunately, you can take Gen Ed classes at a local community college over the summer and transfer the credits to your university to save money. Speaking from a personal experience, the educational experience at a community college might be even better than at a university due to the small class sizes.
More Work, Less Play!
Alternatively, I recommend talking to your advisor about how you can get an exception to take more credit hours than the limit. This way, you can keep your summers open to get a job, an internship, or a research opportunity. PRACTICAL EXPERIENCES DURING COLLEGE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN GRADES!
“Be sure to keep at least 1-2 summers open for Internships. In some fields, your prospects for your first job depend solely on having previous internship experience.”
beight light minds
As a Biomedical Engineering major, I did not have to take more than 19-20 credit hours per semester as I had AP credits for 4 classes (almost a semester). However, I had other classmates that were able to take 21-23 credit hours some semesters to make up for not having any AP credits.
With so much of your time taken up by studying and homework, you will have to prioritize how you will spend your free time. In all honesty, you will have to miss some parties, outings, and game nights. However, it does not mean you will miss out on all your college experiences. You will just have to be pickier about which experiences you care about the most.
Just remember that you will be very thankful for the money will save. Graduating college debt-free will set you a couple of years ahead in life compared to your classmates.
How to actually accomplish graduating in 3 years?
Now that you have all the information you need to make the decision, let’s list the steps you need to take to ensure you can successfully do it.
1. A Solid Plan
You should have your classes planned out for the entire three years. This should be done before you even start your freshman year. Most universities have a four-year plan already prepared for most majors like the one shown below. This makes your work slightly easier. You just have to move around the classes to make sure they fit within 3 years instead of 4 years.
This plan should also include any planning for any classes that you plan on taking over the summer or at a community college.
Once you have a decent plan ready, go talk to your advisor and see if the plan seems feasible from his/her perspective. Advisors know a little bit more about the extent of the workload of each of the courses, so they can point out if you have chosen a couple of difficult classes within the same semester. Your advisor can help you find the shortcomings in your plans and fix them.
2. Come up with a rough plan For Summer vacations
It is important to plan your semesters, but it is just as important to plan your breaks. You need to decide (roughly) what you want to do during summer vacations. Are you going to spend it doing an internship, research, summer classes, freelancing work, or studying for a graduate entrance exam?
Decide on what you would like to do. Be sure to have a backup plan in case you are not able to pursue what you want to do over the summer. It might be your preference to do an internship, but you might not be able to get one. In that case, you can do summer classes instead or try to find an undergraduate research position on campus.
If you plan to go to graduate school, you might not have any choice other than study for entrance exams such as the MCAT or the LSAT.
Whatever it may be that you have to do over the summer, it is very important that you plan ahead for it and have a backup plan in case things do not go as expected.
3. Develop the Right Habits
Be efficient with your time:
Graduating early is all about being efficient with your time and schedule. This also means that you have to be thorough when picking classes. You have to plan for study time in addition to in-class time for each of the courses you are taking. This also refers to you figuring out and utilizing the most efficient study methods to maximize your productivity.
Be Responsible:
If it is your goal to graduate early, you have to be the one that makes sure that you stick to your plan. This means signing up for classes in time to make sure you are able to take all the classes you planned for the semester. In most universities, even though you can’t sign up for classes until the registration date, you can still browse class schedules.
Before your registration date, be ready with the list of exact classes (exact times, exact professors) that you will sign up for. This way, you will be done with registration within 10 minutes and increase your chances of getting a seat in all the classes on your list.
Use Your Free Time Wisely:
You shouldn’t plan out each and every minute of your life as it might lead to a lot of stress, but you should have priorities in place for your free time. In college, your free time is best used to participate in clubs, organizations, or any other extracurricular activities you might be interested in. These activities allow you to socialize with others, get free meals, and give you opportunities to pad up your resume.
Take Care of Yourself:
Doing well in your classes is important, but your physical and mental health always comes first. If you use your time efficiently, you will have plenty of time left over for taking care of yourself: eating healthy meals, exercising, GETTING ENOUGH SLEEP, etc.
You will be surprised how much difference a healthy body and mind can make in your productivity. Additionally, remember that it’s a marathon, not a sprint. If you are going to have a busy schedule for three years, you will have to pace yourself and slow down to ensure you don’t burn out.
4. Keep Your Priorities Straight
You should always keep your priorities straight. Health comes first. Coursework comes second. Extracurricular activities come third. Everything else comes last.
Each night, plan out your next day and be sure to allow the maximum amount of time for higher-priority tasks. This could look like: 1) attending classes, 2) studying for an upcoming exam, and 3) taking out a minimum of 1 hour for any extracurricular activities.
You should focus on one thing at a time based on the priority of the task. Multitasking results in stress, anxiety, low quality work. I suggest you take out separate time for entertainment and non-priority items rather than multitasking them along with higher priority items.
Wrap-Up
Overall, graduating in three years is absolutely doable as long as you are aware of what you are getting into. As long as you are ready to make the sacrifices required, you will be able to enjoy the fruitful results of graduating early.