I graduated from high school a little over a year ago in June 2022. I had spent, more or less, my entire high school career determined to get into a good college, fully aware of the exceedingly high expectations of modern universities.
Accordingly, I left no room for error, taking a total of nine AP classes and six community college classes during those four years. I had done this all solely for the purpose of making my college applications look “impressive”; I hadn’t considered the fact that nearly all of these credits were transferable.
I entered UCI with nearly all of my GE requirements fulfilled, and by my second quarter, I had achieved junior status. This shouldn’t have been shocking to me, but it absolutely was.
Besides being studious, I have always been frugal. And when I finally took note of my accelerated status, it occurred to me that I could save a lot of tuition money if I continued on this trajectory. Thus, my speedrun mindset – and the panic associated with entering the workforce at 19 – finally began.
I understand that this all may read like a self-congratulatory memoir, but that isn’t the case. My academic background isn’t unique. After all, College Board (the company which administers AP exams and sets the standards for AP courses) can attribute its success in part to the existential anxieties of high-achieving highschoolers like myself. Because of this, I assume that there are other students – particularly those who pay out of pocket for tuition – who are in a similar situation as me. And, frankly, it sucks.
For those people, or for incoming freshman who will be in this situation, I want to compile a list of tips and advice to mitigate the complications that come with the speedrun method – namely, figuring out what to do with your life in one academic year, missing out on social events, and delaying the advancement of your career.
Make a course plan
This tip is focused on mitigating one of the most glaring problems with the speedrun method: Going immediately from high school to the work force in two years seriously rushes the whole “figuring out what you want to do with your life” process. Because of this, if you have declared a major, I suggest avoiding fulfilling your major requirements until all of your GE requirements are done.
By doing this, you allow yourself to still make progress on your degree while allowing yourself to change your major. Of course, you can change your major after taking major-related classes, but doing this may result in wasted time, effort, and money.
I understand that navigating thousands of tabs (course descriptions, major requirements, GE requirements, school requirements, Rate My Professor, schedule of classes, etc.) to plan out the upcoming academic year can be overwhelming and extremely tedious. To combat this overwhelm, set aside multiple days to complete this process.
I didn’t do this, and instead jumped right into my major requirements for my first quarter at UCI. The next quarter, shockingly, I started second-guessing my major entirely, even after years of being certain that Psychology was the major for me. So, the bottom line here is: leave room for your humanity, growth, and change, as long as you can.
Research clubs and annual events
Staying at UCI for so little time can mean less time to figure out what goes on here and how you can get involved. My first year, I was hardly involved at all, instead zeroing in entirely on work, academics, and relationships. This led to me missing out on tons of events and activities. Balancing your social and academic life is notoriously difficult for most students, but planning ahead can save you some time and give you some much-needed confidence going into the new academic quarter.
For this, I suggest browsing UCI’s list of campus organizations and seeing what groups interest you. When picking a potential club or organization to join, here are some questions you can ask yourself:
- How committed am I willing to be to an organization?
- How willing am I to pay potential club fees? How much?
- What do I want out of this club (e.g., friendship/community, career connections, advice, volunteer work, resume boost, learn a new skill)?
As for school-wide events, the UCI campus orgs events page has a wide range of events listed and updated regularly, or you can follow ASUCI on Instagram for updates on events hosted by the organization.
I strongly advise doing this all ahead of time, because once the quarter starts, it’s easy to put off this research process, which can also be long and tedious.
Visit the Division of Career Pathways (DCP)
Another major problem with speedrunning university is that you have less time to prepare to enter the workforce upon graduating. Because of this, it’s important that you take advantage of the resources the DCP has to offer (resume help, general “what do I do with my life” questions, etc.) before you can no longer access them. You can get the most out of the DCP while you are a student, so I suggest visiting them as soon as possible, even (and especially) if you have no idea what you want to do yet.
I just started visiting the DCP this year, and only then did I realize the following things:
- My resume sucked
- LinkedIn is actually a good resource, even if I think it is corny
- There are way more career options for me than I originally thought
Do not put this one off! You will thank yourself.
Final thoughts
The speedrun approach obviously has its financial benefits, and ultimately, I understand that I’m lucky to be saving thousands of dollars on tuition by graduating early. However, ideally, I would be able to stay here for the four years I was admitted to stay for. I like learning, and despite university’s hardships, I wish I could stay here longer and really experience the whole thing. Unfortunately, though, being a student is expensive. Existing is expensive, actually. And a university speedrun is one unconventional but effective way to make being in your late-teens/early twenties a little less costly.