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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To take some gap years.

B.S. It's to both save money and start life. It's called opportunity cost. Google it. It's silly to piss away a year of life "taking courses". The magical part of undergrad is that first year and second. After that, mature students are eager to move on. Finish as quickly as you can and either jump into a career or head to medical or law school, so you can quickly finish that and make some real money.

[Anonymous]

An easy bachelor's should only be two or three years in the first place. It's only four years so universities can milk money from saps. And the only kids who need four to six years to finish these days are mediocre students who need remedial courses.

[Anonymous]

Parents are cheap?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To take some gap years.

B.S. It's to both save money and start life. It's called opportunity cost. Google it. It's silly to piss away a year of life "taking courses". The magical part of undergrad is that first year and second. After that, mature students are eager to move on. Finish as quickly as you can and either jump into a career or head to medical or law school, so you can quickly finish that and make some real money.

The ones I know doing this have extraordinary credentials and want to attend grad school

[Anonymous]

Senior year was kind of a drag. I was a very active and social (but not scholarly) 1990s grad at a Top 10-20 school and I was just over it at that point. I could have just skipped the whole thing honestly. Most of us had one foot out the door.

[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

+1 seriously

Even though we are UMC, we don't come from money. We earned every penny and actually help family members. Finding yourself in college is a luxury we don't really have.

People who say that college is a "trade school" to us type of people are elitist aholes in their little privileged bubbles who know nothing about how the real world works.

[Anonymous]

OP you realize that graduating from college doesn't mean that one can't live life anymore?

If anything the freedom that having a salary provides gives them more opportunities to experience life than the stuffy college frat parties and bars that get old after a year. Many plan to return to college for masters anyways.

[Anonymous]

My kid is just starting but will be able to graduate in 3 years due to credits from APs. No. sure if will do that, though or double major instead

[Anonymous]

My kid was planning to graduate a year or semester early but found a very enticing paid internship opportunity thar required taking a semester off, so did that instead and will graduate on-time. Before that came along, kid was absolutely planning to finish quicker (has loans).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All the AP classes taken in MCPS and going to OOS publics where they accept the APs makes it super easy to graduate in 3 years, saving tens of thousands of dollars, which in our case, can then go toward grad school

This. DS started college as a second semester sophomore.

[Anonymous]

Because they realized they have enough credits to graduate and another year would cost $50-80K?

And because college for kids graduating this year was a mess. Almost two years of online classes, restricted social life, isolation and masking meant college wasn't as fun as everyone said it'd be. Ready to move on.

[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

+1 seriously

Even though we are UMC, we don't come from money. We earned every penny and actually help family members. Finding yourself in college is a luxury we don't really have.

People who say that college is a "trade school" to us type of people are elitist aholes in their little privileged bubbles who know nothing about how the real world works.

Let me guess, you live in a million dollar + house, and earn $400-800K and pretend not to be rich.

[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.

+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

I thought 8-5 work was awful compared to college.

[Anonymous]

If they went to private they were most likely held back, so they are graduating on time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

If you think about it, the kid who was redshirted in kindergarten and graduated in 3 years with a bunch of AP credits is learning the same material at the same age as his father who was not redshirted and graduated in 4.

I'd still say most redshirted kids graduate college in 3.5 years, not 3 years flat.

No, they don't. Stop making stuff up. Or, they take extra summer and AP classes to make up for the fact that their parents screwed them over and didn't think highly of them so they held them back in school.