Why are UMC kids graduating 1 yr early from college?!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:School just isn’t fun anymore. It’s not about exploration or making friends. From one year before they start tracking math in your neighborhood, it’s about executive function and taking all the right classes. And it never ends. You might as well stop spending money and start making money, because you’re not having fun anyway.

+1

There isn’t a lot of room for creative exploration in school any more, either at the college or HS level. It is all about the grade grind. That makes it boring and if you are going to grind you might as well get money for it.

Are the kids happier once they start working?

Yes. Working 9-5 with no homework is 100% better

Are they working for minimum wage? What high paying entry level jobs are 9 to 5 these days?

My son is working for $75,000. Entry level professionals are not working for minimum wage. You sound clueless.

So what is his job and where does he work? Do most entry level folks only work 9 to 5 at this company?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:School just isn’t fun anymore. It’s not about exploration or making friends. From one year before they start tracking math in your neighborhood, it’s about executive function and taking all the right classes. And it never ends. You might as well stop spending money and start making money, because you’re not having fun anyway.

This. If your only goal.is to make good grades and get the highest paying job possible, why not finish as fast as possible? College is essentially trade school to these types..

[Anonymous]

College is a lot easier nowadays. Lots of online classes offered in summer, winter & even during the school year. Even if you come in with zero college credits, if you take 18 credits from Spring semester of Freshman year through Spring semester of junior year plus an off-season class somewhere in that mix, that puts you a semester ahead & then some

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:School just isn’t fun anymore. It’s not about exploration or making friends. From one year before they start tracking math in your neighborhood, it’s about executive function and taking all the right classes. And it never ends. You might as well stop spending money and start making money, because you’re not having fun anyway.

This. If your only goal.is to make good grades and get the highest paying job possible, why not finish as fast as possible? College is essentially trade school to these types..

To “types” that aren’t rich, yeah

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:School just isn’t fun anymore. It’s not about exploration or making friends. From one year before they start tracking math in your neighborhood, it’s about executive function and taking all the right classes. And it never ends. You might as well stop spending money and start making money, because you’re not having fun anyway.

+1

There isn’t a lot of room for creative exploration in school any more, either at the college or HS level. It is all about the grade grind. That makes it boring and if you are going to grind you might as well get money for it.

Are the kids happier once they start working?

My sister graduated a semester early from swarthmore and started working a month after graduation at a faang company and was so much happier (though now she appreciates and likes swat, at the time she was always getting in trouble with admin over pot and not showing up to class)

She preferred earning money and being able to smoke weed any time she wanted.

I’m glad that she can function at such a high level in spite of smoking up all the time. That’s impressive.

We are a middle class family, the opportunity cost of 100k was worth it

(Started working six months early, 60k roughly in pay, plus saving a semester of tuition/housing etc

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:School just isn’t fun anymore. It’s not about exploration or making friends. From one year before they start tracking math in your neighborhood, it’s about executive function and taking all the right classes. And it never ends. You might as well stop spending money and start making money, because you’re not having fun anyway.

This. If your only goal.is to make good grades and get the highest paying job possible, why not finish as fast as possible? College is essentially trade school to these types..

To “types” that aren’t rich, yeah

There’s a big gap between UMC and genuinely rich. Most UMC types have tasted life without money and are still sensitive to throwing it away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:School just isn’t fun anymore. It’s not about exploration or making friends. From one year before they start tracking math in your neighborhood, it’s about executive function and taking all the right classes. And it never ends. You might as well stop spending money and start making money, because you’re not having fun anyway.

+1

There isn’t a lot of room for creative exploration in school any more, either at the college or HS level. It is all about the grade grind. That makes it boring and if you are going to grind you might as well get money for it.

Are the kids happier once they start working?

Yes. Working 9-5 with no homework is 100% better

Are they working for minimum wage? What high paying entry level jobs are 9 to 5 these days?

My son is working for $75,000. Entry level professionals are not working for minimum wage. You sound clueless.

So what is his job and where does he work? Do most entry level folks only work 9 to 5 at this company?

You’re hung up on the 9-5 comment and missing the big picture. Assume a person has to grind 80 hours a week at the job. But hey, he’s getting paid! In school, he was grinding 80 hours a week and NOT getting paid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1) A lot of current college students didn’t get into the colleges they wanted, so it’s become a practical thing - get in and get out.
2) College costs a lot, but especially if you hoped to go in-state but got stuck with private or OOS.
3) Few people think about college as self-exploration anymore. It’s a professional boot camp measured by ROI.
4) Tech jobs have paid so well and have so easy to get, staying in school is a huge money waste.
5) If you want to pursue a graduate degree, save some time and money and get on with it.

Personally, I’m saddened by these trends. College has become another checkmark on the way to jobs and riches. I’m not sure how our society will eventually function without any interest in history, culture, or ethics. Most don’t want to consider the soft skills that actually make societies work. Sure, technology is great, but violence and wars, while fought with technology, have their source in human thoughts and emotions.

IMO, college should not be equal to history, culture or ethics. A person who works a regular decent 40 hr a week job has plenty of time (and money to explore) all these things. At one point the only way to get the knowledge was going to college, now with documentaries, books, edex, coursera, I fail to see how if anyone wants to learn about something they can't. History, culture etc... should be "personal development" type of activities like Tennis and Piano that can reasonably pursued even after you graduate.

[Anonymous]

and why take unnecessary classes like history in college when an adult has no interest and has to pay money? All of us took mandatory social studies classes at high school.. Isn't 12 years of mandatory schooling sufficient for the society to function? If not, then add in more content for high school so as adults we can all focus on what we want to do vs. "satisfying requirements for a well functioning society"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:and why take unnecessary classes like history in college when an adult has no interest and has to pay money? All of us took mandatory social studies classes at high school.. Isn't 12 years of mandatory schooling sufficient for the society to function? If not, then add in more content for high school so as adults we can all focus on what we want to do vs. "satisfying requirements for a well functioning society"

History in HS and college SHOULD be very different. In HS, especially in AP classes, the focus is on facts. In college, especially in non-introductory courses, it’s about reading and comparing sources and creating your own arguments, or at least that’s the way it is at selective colleges.

[Anonymous]

This is all very interesting. Someone should write an article about this.

[Anonymous]

I know two classmates at my private k-12 school back in the 80s who took summer classes and graduated from college a year early. They both had to repeat a year when they came to our school in the eighth grade as they were academically unprepared. I figured they wanted to make up the year they stayed back by graduating a year early in college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:School just isn’t fun anymore. It’s not about exploration or making friends. From one year before they start tracking math in your neighborhood, it’s about executive function and taking all the right classes. And it never ends. You might as well stop spending money and start making money, because you’re not having fun anyway.

This. If your only goal.is to make good grades and get the highest paying job possible, why not finish as fast as possible? College is essentially trade school to these types..

To “types” that aren’t rich, yeah

Actually, it seems like UMC kids who don't need to do this or graduating the earliest. I don't understand it, except that they don't really want to be in school and just want to make $$$ asap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:School just isn’t fun anymore. It’s not about exploration or making friends. From one year before they start tracking math in your neighborhood, it’s about executive function and taking all the right classes. And it never ends. You might as well stop spending money and start making money, because you’re not having fun anyway.

This. If your only goal.is to make good grades and get the highest paying job possible, why not finish as fast as possible? College is essentially trade school to these types..

To “types” that aren’t rich, yeah

Actually, it seems like UMC kids who don't need to do this or graduating the earliest. I don't understand it, except that they don't really want to be in school and just want to make $$$ asap.

High-performing UMC kids have a boatload of AP or IB classes with great scores on the exams to boot. Additionally they generally don’t have to work for money much during college so can take 15+ credits every semester or summer classes that are $1K+ a pop. Most are very well prepared for college so don’t need to repeat classes and won’t fail any.

[Anonymous]

Almost everybody who graduates college early was on track to graduate early the moment they graduated high school. These days, it's not unusual to graduate high school with a year or 2 of college credits under one's belt. If you start college on track to graduate in 3 years or less, then you're not compressing anything by graduating in 3 years. The only instance I would consider graduating in 3 years to be rushing is if you entered college with less then a semester's worth of AP credits, but I don't that's terribly common. I greatly overwhelmed myself by graduating in college in 3.5 years, but that's because I only entered with 6 AP credits. I should've taken the full 4 years.