There is a common experience among many American college students that as children, we were given the impression that the ultimate goal to achieve in order to secure our futures is to go to college and get a degree. However, since childhood, the meaning of going to college has evolved greatly. It is no longer about simply going to college.
With time, we begin to have expectations of our future performance, and we start planning things according to the oft perpetuated social ideal of having a college career that lasts no more than four years. Some even aspire to leave higher education as early as possible. Now that going to college has largely become a commonplace phenomenon, it is now inextricably tied with our sense of personal success.
As a result, those who take more time in college - those who divert from what we are brought up to believe is the norm - can often find themselves feeling a sense of shame or failure.
By calling the 4-year-or-less collegiate career into question, I am not insinuating that such a standard is completely obsolete. It does exist for a reason. Colleges and universities simply do not have the room to accommodate all students due to a lack of funding, housing, instructors, and staff, and institutions of higher education also face logistical difficulties when dealing with growing student populations. That being said, graduating in four years has never been about promoting the well-being, personal growth, or sustainability of a student's success. It has always been promoted against the backdrop of the system of education's inability to provide for everyone's needs.
The assumption of graduation in four years is absolutely based on the assumption that nothing will go wrong, which is unrealistic. I have experienced bumps along the road in my academic career, have had to withdraw from courses before, and have called my path of study into question - all events which could have caused me to need more than four years' time to complete my path of study.
However, despite my experiences and my desire to earn two degrees, I am still on track to graduate in four years. I am lucky because I am able to meet the standard of a four-year undergraduate tenure, and consequently, I've never experienced the emotions associated with diverting from the norm. The "bumps" I encountered are not uncommon - almost everyone going to or in college will or has experienced trials like I did - and they can easily cause one to need more time.
Mental health crises, separation from family for long periods of time, trouble transitioning to campus life, illness, financial difficulties, and other circumstances can pop up unexpectedly in anyone's life. While I was never placed in the position of having to take five years, the experiences of my friends and peers who feel pressured to "succeed" in four years, or find themselves in need of more time in order to graduate, has compelled me to think critically about how arbitrary the standard is.
Four years is a realistic goal for most college students, but this does not mean it is a possibility for everyone. Institutions still operate using the 4-year plan of study in a "one size fits all" manner, but in what world has anything advertised as "one size fits all" truly fit everyone? Those who do not meet the social standard of finishing college under such a constraint do not deserve to feel shame.
In my opinion, it is far more beneficial to go to take the time you need to finish strong than it is to rush through college to meet a somewhat arbitrary standard of academic completion. People who graduate in four years or less are not more likely to be successful than those who have needed more time. College students are not in a race to graduate before everyone else - we are each on a path of study in differing fields, opening different doors of opportunity, and embarking on a journey of self-discovery, mistakes, and lessons.
There is no timestamp in existence that can guarantee the fulfillment of a person because nobody is the same. This is why the expectation that you must finish college within a time-limit is a bad model to define success. Our society needs to work towards destigmatizing the act of taking more than four years to graduate; future generations do not need the additional burden.
To people in college who find themselves struggling, students who are questioning their paths, and those who are yet to enter college: You deserve to take as much time as you need in order to succeed. The artificial time constraint for academic performance that most schools operate under is not universally attainable, and you do not need to feel shame.
Your development as a person and your future successes are not defined by a date in a calendar. The work you put in and the qualities imbued in you through experience and learned material is what will result in your future achievements. Life is already difficult, so take the time to be kind to yourself and become the best person you can be.
