On average, a Bachelor’s degree takes four years; some people need more, some people need less. At the end of my third year as an undergraduate student, I’ll have both a Bachelor’s degree and the first year of law school completed. Reactions to this vary from, “Wow, that’s so great! You did the smart thing by getting ahead!” to “Oh my, I can’t believe that. How do you have a life?”
For those of you that are on track to getting a degree in a period of time shorter than four years, you definitely understand the struggle of being ahead. Most people are congratulatory and excited for you, and on the outside you’re excited as well. But on the inside, that’s a whole different story. Here are the top five struggles of being ahead:
1. Your class load is intense.
Chances are you’re taking around 15 hours at the bare minimum. You likely have about six classes and you’re desperately trying to fit in electives to give yourself a break. Your classmates are much older than you, and somehow you managed to skip 100 and 200 level classes and you’ve gone straight into those tough 300 levels without realizing it.
2. You're nervous about stepping into "the real world" so early.
Being ahead is great if you want to save money or have a killer resume, but the down side? You’ll be entering the big, scary “real world” way sooner than anticipated. No one prepared you for that one, huh?
3. You hate that you're going to have to leave your friends behind.
Being ahead means graduating early, and graduating early means doing it without your friends along for the ride as well. Sure, they’ll embarrass you in the crowd by screaming when your name is called, and they’ll no doubt force you to take countless pictures in your cap and gown, but they won’t be experiencing it with you. You’ll leave that summer and they won’t (just don’t think about it).
4. You're constantly planning five steps ahead in an attempt to be prepared.
By being ahead it’s clear that you’re a planner. You like to be prepared and have a plan (as well as a plan B…C…maybe even a plan D). You know exactly what you need to do in order to be finished early, and you’re already working five steps ahead. Just do yourself a favor and slow down every once in awhile. Trust me, you’ll thank me for that later.
5. You forget to relax sometimes.
Your busy schedule and ambitious plans tend to have you on edge most of the time. You have a hard time relaxing because there’s always something you could be doing, and why on earth would let it go undone, right? Wrong. Plan some time to take a breather every now and again. It’ll do you no good to stress yourself out constantly.
So yeah, graduating early and being ahead is nothing short of commendable and ambitious, but before you go making a big deal about it for someone, realize that it’s not all rainbows and butterflies. Support goes a lot further than congratulations.
