“You’re too young,” “You’re not prepared enough,” “Why would you do that,” “You won’t make it,” are all things I had heard when I decided to graduate high school in three years instead of four.
I made this decision during my sophomore year, after realizing I would only need an English credit my senior year. What was the point of staying in high school a whole extra year if I only needed one class? I figured I’d be able to do so because normally, I’m someone who’s pretty confident in things that I do and determined when I set my mind to them. However, with all of this doubt surrounding me, I wasn’t sure it was the right decision.
Nevertheless, I managed to achieve my goal. I was off to college two months after my seventeenth birthday. I’ve gotten a lot of questions about early graduation and how it’s impacted my college life. The simple answer would be almost none.
Almost no one cared how old I was once I got to college. I get the occasional “Omg, you’re a baby!” when people find out my age but everyone I have met has said they would have never known I was younger if I didn’t tell them. I’ve always been pretty mature for my age (aka the mom of the friend group) and I always got along with people who were older than me. So socially, there has been no issues.
Academically, I have been doing better than I did in high school! So to everyone who said I wouldn’t be prepared enough to take college classes…You. Were. Wrong. Logically thinking about it however, I took the same amount of credits to graduate that everyone else did and even earned college credits so their arguments were invalid in the first place.
The only down side I have experienced so far is that I left a lot of my friends back home, and no longer got to experience senior year with them. It was weird seeing all of my friends at school through Snapchat and not being there, I felt like I was skipping school.
Overall, graduating early was one of the best things I’ve done. I’ve grown academically and socially with zero problems along the way. Remember to not worry about if people are telling you to do something or to not do something, set your mind to your goals, and to not give up. You will amaze yourself with the things you can achieve.