Written by: Kirsten Werner
Picture this: you’ve just entered your first semester of college and you have absolutely zero clue as to what you should major in. You set up a Zoom meeting with your advisor to discuss your options based on your interests. Upon going through your options, you still have a lot of deciding to do. But, by the beginning of the following school year, you have officially declared your major.
Now you begin to worry. What if I don’t finish my degree when I had wanted to? What if I fall behind my friends who graduated high school with me? What if I want to change my major again? Does taking longer than four years to complete my bachelor’s degree make me a failure?
In short, no, it does not make you a failure. Many college students, myself included, end up taking longer than four years to complete their bachelor’s degree. But that is okay. Shawn Laib’s post talks about how “There are many different paths to the same goal of getting a degree.”
In kindergarten through high school, there is an emphasis on how age and grade level intertwine. Kindergarteners are generally 5 or 6 years old, first-graders are 6 or 7 years old, and so on. However, once you graduate from high school, you can decide whether or not you want to continue your education. Some people go off to college, while others enter the workforce immediately after graduation.
When you become an adult, you start to realize that the age at which you complete the goals you’ve set for yourself doesn’t matter nearly as much as it did previously. For example, I will be graduating at the age of 23 rather than 22, but I will still be in the same stage of life even though I am graduating a semester late.
It’s important to take the time you need to find yourself, whether that means declaring your major later than others or taking a gap year after high school. Setting goals for yourself is healthy, but it can become unhealthy when you set those goals in stone. Think of college as you would driving; detours are inevitable, so you must not limit yourself to one particular path. If you find that another route is a better choice for you on your journey, it is acceptable to take that one instead.
No longer are there stages of development that you need to meet by a certain age. When you are a child, you are expected to walk and talk by a certain age, as well as match your peers in terms of academic, social, and emotional milestones. As an adult, you do not need to move at such a rapid pace to meet your goals. As long as you keep learning and growing, you will accomplish what you set out to do, no matter how long it takes.
The act of comparing yourself to those who you graduated high school with is not a healthy practice. It will do nothing more than intensify any feelings of anxiety or ostracization you may have. It is best to consider that phase of your life to be over. That’s not to say that you can’t offer any congratulatory support, but you shouldn’t obsessively check people’s feeds to see who is graduating versus who isn’t.
Someone will always be ahead of you, but that doesn’t mean they are better than you or have everything figured out. Higher education does not have to be akin to a race, as you can allow yourself to finish in your own time by separating your past life from your current one.
Lastly, a critical thing to keep in mind is the fact that college is optional. You have chosen to further your education, so you may do so however you wish. You were selected out of thousands of candidates to attend your university of choice, so make the most of it. If you finish in three years, that’s wonderful! Four? Amazing! Five? Perfect! Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.