Ever since I was in high school, I always had the idea of graduating early from college. I knew I wanted to go to law school which, in total, would take me about seven years with my undergraduate included. During my freshman year of college, I decided to look at the pros of graduating early before actually making my decision. Of course, it was great to know that I could potentially be graduating in three years rather than four, but that couldn’t be the only perk especially since college was actually fun. So here are some other perks that convinced me to stick with the decision:
- Less debt
This was probably the biggest pro of graduating early. I don’t necessarily have any debt at the moment, but since I would like to continue with grad school, I knew that I needed to save money for the future. This is why graduating in three worked since I was going to use the money from my fourth year of undergrad to help pay for parts of my graduate school tuition.
- Graduating with my friends
Many of my friends are older than me so they will also be graduating this year. This in a sense helps me feel as if I won’t be missing out on college as much since the people that I have always hung out with will be going on other things. Also, many of my friends who are my age are also graduating early so it allows me to be able to take grad pictures with them or just celebrate our accomplishments.
- Going into grad school young
This allows me to have a different view than others going into grad school. My goal is to go to law school and most people who attend law school tend to be older. So, for example, the average age for a first-year law student is 25; I on the other hand will enter when I am 20 so this will make me different from the rest. I aim to finish school at a young age rather than when I’m older.
These are some of the reasons that I decided to graduate early. Even though I am happy that I was able to find pros to graduating, I will miss being an undergraduate student. My college path was a little different than others, but I feel like I managed to make the best of my three years and make it feel like forever even though I knew it would always have to come to an end. Thank you UC Riverside for allowing me to have the best undergraduate years.