College Brain Fart

• 2/18/2008 - Oh Very Young

Forgive the Cat Stevens reference (although anyone who hasn't heard that song needs to go listen to it, like RIGHT NOW or I may cry), as it actually has something to do with my topic. And this topic has every bit as much to do with college as it does with high school:

The pros and cons of graduating high school early.

I was 17 when I started college, fresh out of high school a year early. It took me a while to find any information about early graduation, and my school wasn't precisely forthcoming in my requests. Nevertheless, I found enough information by January of 2007 to inform the school of my intent, fill out the necessary paperwork, and order my graduation gown and whatnot. But that took way too much effort, so I'm here to lay out what I know.

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Let's start with the pros of early graduation:

Academic Prestige
Admission to college sooner
Independence
Less time in THE HELLHOLE

And now, the cons:

It's a ton of work
Applications are harder to fill out with the limited classes from graduating early
Some students aren't NEAR mature enough
Some schools won't recognize a junior as a senior and therefore won't allow participation in commencement ceremonies

So really, this is a decision to be made on one's own. I haven't put down all the reasons, but these are the ones I think are important. People may have more personal reasons, too - for example, I had two. The first was that I wanted to achieve my dream of studying abroad sooner. The second, far more important reason was that my grandfather probably wasn't going to live past my expected graduation date, and I wanted him to know I'd done it.

But not everyone really has a reason - a very intelligent young woman I know decided to do it, almost on a whim, and she's not sure if she did the right thing. Either way, it's done and over, as she put it, and she doesn't have to regret it any more than anything else. She's flourishing in college - and so am I. Considering we were both terrible high school students, this is saying something.

Like I said, though, this is something one needs to decide on one's own. Just remember that you have to live with the decision, so choose wisely.

-Rem