Vincent Ferrer/The Mirror
College: the word itself brings up ideas of co-ed dorm living, long nights of partying coupled with long nights of forced study and finally reaching a level of adulthood in which you are free from home life and, to a certain extent, parents’ rules.
Mention the word to aged adults in the thick of the real-world and they will often recall memories of “the glory days.” The keg stands and beach parties, or, as one parent of a friend did in the years he went to Fairfield University, riding a motorcycle up and down the steps of the dormitories at one o’clock in the morning, completely untamed.
College, for others, isn’t one long four-year vacation. There are students who choose to cut their time spent in school down by a semester or even two.
One such student, Will VanWhy ’12, a 20-year-old art history major with a minor in English, is graduating a full year before his peers. He made this decision early on in his freshman year of college, and had several reasons as to why he decided to finish school in three years.
Will is happy with his decision to cut his college career short, even though he knew going into the endeavor that the school would try its hardest to convince him to stay the extra two semesters.
“It’s entirely up to the student to decide and follow through with early graduation–the school obviously doesn’t want to lose the tuition from someone who should be spending four years at the college but it’s unnecessary to stay. I’m saving money and time,” he said.
In an article from Dec. 6 on USA Today: College Edition Online, early graduates can “negatively impact university budgets that rely on student tuition dollars,” an obvious issue for both students and schools that could potentially lead to reform in the number of early graduates allowed per year if the current numbers keep growing.
Though Will is saving his money and has sped up his introduction into the job market by a year, he knows that not everyone would want to or even be able to handle the pressures of cramming a curriculum designed to be accomplished in four years into only three.
“It’s not for everyone, obviously, but this is something I’ve always wanted to do. Hopefully this time next year I’ll have a job or at least be getting job experience somewhere, while the rest of the people my age will be just finishing school.”
Fairfield University is a four-year college with an emphasis on the experience of the student academically as well as spiritually and emotionally. Though none could cite specific data on the number of early graduates Fairfield has each year, several school representatives had mixed feelings about students who try to graduate off schedule and before their peers.
The Dean of Exploratory Academic Advising Dr. Deb Chappell was one of the representatives who gave her opinion on the matter, and she made it clear that students need to get all four years of college to fully experience and appreciate their time spent at a school.
“I believe that students who rush to graduate early do miss part of the entire student experience, because their experience, instead of being 8 semesters and three summers between, is compressed,” stated Dean Chappell. “They take more courses at a faster pace, and they rush through the system academically. The compression also causes students to limit their involvement in extracurricular activities, which limits the full college experience—both the academic and the extra-curricular experience.
Likewise, students often don’t like being pressured and can feel as though they are missing out, which is the main reason Dean Chappell disagrees with the decision to graduate early made by several students each graduating year.
She stated, “College is about learning – academically, of course. But college is also about learning about oneself and experiencing personal growth and development. There is only one set of four years for the undergraduate experience, and there is no other educational experience like it. Graduate school, law school, dental school and medical school are all very different from the undergraduate experience. That is the reason that I think it is so important to have the full undergraduate experience.”
Another reason students might shy away from graduating early is the prospect of obtaining a job or being admitted into a graduate school, law school, or any other professional program. Cath Borgman, director of the Career Planning office on campus, was able to make some sense of the likelihood of early graduates to be taken seriously by companies and schools right out of college.
“From what I can tell,” she stated, “employers are more concerned that you have your courses completed and you are equipped to do the job they want filled. Having the degree is more important than if you did it in three or four years.”
According to Borgman, the time it took for a student to graduate, be it three or four years, should have little impact on whether or not that student is a qualified candidate for being hired, as long as they did well and have a strong resume.
“If you want to get a job in a leadership program,” she said, “you probably won’t start working until the rest of the new grads in your ‘starting class’ have graduated. Otherwise, it goes back to if there is a job opening and you have the skills they will hire you.”
When asked whether or not he felt like he got a true college experience, VanWhy said he had no regrets about graduating before other students his age.
“It’s been relatively positive, but, yeah, some people have said to me that I should stay another year, get the ‘college experience,’ but I’ve always been independent. I can’t wait to be on my own, have my own place. I’m an old soul.”
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