In the United States, the accepted age to graduate with an undergraduate degree is 22 years old. Students enroll in college at 18, wide-eyed and fresh out of high school, taking the next four years in stride to graduate on time. As an 18-year-old junior, college is a different story for me.
Within the United State’s academic climate, many students find regular, age- and grade-appropriate classes too easy and choose to learn ahead in school. Skipping grades, going into home-schooling and taking AP high-school classes are three of the most common options students have to get ahead. A fourth option, formally called Running Start in my home state of Washington, was the path I chose to take.
The program is marketed to students as an alternative education style that allows you to complete your high school degree while gaining an Associate's Degree as well. The goal is to have the student graduate with a high -school degree as well as an associates that allows them to transfer to four year institutions within the state of Washington with tuition being covered by the state if the student takes 100 level or above college classes.
In 2013, at the age of 16, I enrolled in my local community college through Running Start with the encouragement of my parents, taking a basic English 101 class and an American history class. At this time I was still enrolled part time at my high-school in a math class, so I didn’t really think of myself as a full-time college student.
I had some opposition towards my parents idea of taking college-level courses as I was not the most studious of students in my first two years of high school. The prospects of also having to leave my high-school friends, as shallow as that may have been, also represented a hefty chunk of my aversion.
It wasn’t until I enrolled in classes, saw the style of teaching the college offered and my lackluster high-school GPA that I truly embraced my fate as a 16-year-old college student. I knew I wanted to go to college and pursue higher-education, but with my low GPA I knew I would never be accepted; the reality of not being able to get into college with my current standing is what drove me to dive into the alternative education.
I am overwhelmingly glad I chose to embark on getting ahead in school as it’s shaped my future, for better and for worse. Currently, one year with no room and board at my University has cost me only $8,000. When I graduate in 2017 i’ll have accumulated about $16,000 in federal student debt, $19,000 less than The Wall Street Journal’s 2015 prediction of $35,000.
Skipping over my freshman and sophomore years of college has allowed me the ability to not only potentially enter the workforce earlier, but also the ability to pay off my loans quicker than most students my age. Even with the extra two years of attending graduate school I will be an academically qualified candidate for prospective jobs in my degree field, on par with applicants two years older than me.
Entering university fresh out of high-school as a junior also allowed me the privilege to jump into my major. I did not have to take freshman or sophomore classes which are often repeated lessons of high-school curriculum. Instead I began taking Journalism and design classes off the bat, making my entering experience much more enjoyable.
Despite all these alluring advantages, getting ahead in my education has had some negative impacts on my past, current and future life.
For example, entering the workforce at an early age, despite its allure, can have possible negative effects for my career. While I would be qualified in an academic and merit based sense, my age may not sit well with companies, and I could come off as juvenile or inexperienced.
However, isolation from my peers was one of the two very large negative effects going to college early had created in the of the latter half of my high-school-college experience. Throughout the first year, my junior year, I was dual enrolled in both my high-school and college. I took classes at both and knew what events were going on and if I wanted to attend.
During my senior year, that changed. I was no-longer enrolled in both high-school and college classes, and instead I attended only the college. I found myself physically cut off from the school, its senior year events and the friends I had made throughout the years. I had assimilated fully to college life, focusing on studies and classes rather than high-school life. At one point someone, an ex-friend, said that I thought I was better than everyone else because I was a seasoned college student at 17.
The second negative effect of going to college early was I was left with no time to truly discover my career desires. Your freshman and sophomore years are the times when you experiment with classes and find the degree you want to pursue if you don’t already have one in mind. I entered the community college at 16 with no real solid idea of what I wanted to do, and I was so preoccupied on completing high-school that I was left no time to develop my desires.
Even now as I attend a university, taking major-specific classes, I am still wary of declaring my major and setting it in stone. I flip-flop back and forth between my chosen careers constantly, and I blame Running Start wholeheartedly for my indecisiveness; I was never given the time to experiment and make my mistakes.
With every choice in life, Running Start had provided me with negative and positive experiences which will shape the rest of my life. Overall, I will take out less debt than the average American college student, and I will be able to enter my work-filed earlier or with more academic and vocational merit than others my age making me a better candidate, but these benefits do not come without their prices.
I may not pay for all of my advanced education in cold, hard cash, but figuratively I will have paid in lonesome, study-filled nights, and I will continue to pay in my tossing of choices indecisively, my future career resting in an indefinite land of insecurity.
