The Four-Year Stigma

Perhaps this is because I am the last in a family of college graduates who finished school in typical four years, but I have noticed of late that people tend to assume that all college students complete their undergraduate degrees in the traditional four years. But I speak for both sides when I say that this assumption is somewhat restrictive.

For those who really do feel that college is the best time of their lives, maybe the expected four-year turnaround just isn’t enough time to take in all that an education has to offer before entering the real world. Ambition no longer even means a double major – that was very 2005 – and now some students are boasting triple majors accompanied by double minors, a course load with too many credits to finish in eight semesters. Some opt for summer school to finish up on time, but there is a new rise of so-called “fifth-year seniors,” a term once used specifically for high school students that is now applied to college students as well (but in an entirely different tone).

Though these super seniors choose to weather an extra year of tuition, they enjoy the experience – and they generally do so abroad. Many four-year institutions boast high percentages of students studying abroad for one semester, so much so that a full year abroad is now becoming closer to normative. And as such, students need (and sometimes want) more time on campus when they return to the country.

On the other end, there are many college students who choose to graduate early – sometimes because it’s what they can afford, other times because they prefer the working world to the classroom, and still other instances by which it’s just how credits worked out. Aside from the obvious financial benefits of this decision, there is a solid argument behind the idea that too much time in the classroom exhausts the energy we want to spend on working in the real world.

But I worry that too many people assume that an early graduate is an unhappy one, and that college was a miserable experience for those who leave prematurely. On the contrary, it may be just the opposite in some circumstances. Many early graduates take the opportunity to enter the workforce quickly so as to apply their educations to their work as soon as possible. For some, that is just where they belong.