My Thoughts on the "Graduate in 4 Years" Recommendation

I promise that, for now, today is the last post on the school topic. Today, I want to focus on college and university along with the "Graduate in 4 years" rhetoric that's thrown around.

This recommendation is something that's thrown around a lot in college and university communities. It isn't always directly stated along the lines of "Take [insert number] units per semester to graduate in 4 years!" (You can always rephrase this to something you've heard about the graduate in 4 years rhetoric.)

Even if this idea isn't directly stated, you can often see it around: people around you graduating in 4 years, a certain number of units you need to take per semester to be considered a "full-time student," and so many other clues.

I have a very strong opinion on the idea of having (or "needing") to graduate in 4 years. Depending on how it's relayed to students, it can be a very detrimental mindset to push across. Again, it really depends on how the college or university pushes this idea to the students, and how often it's communicated to them.

If it's something that's only occasionally mentioned by an advisor as a gentle recommendation, I think that's fine. However, once it starts getting broadcasted everywhere is where it can get detrimental - banners and/or posters on campus, images on the website, phrases like "Take [insert number] units per semester to graduate in 4 years!"

I'm currently in university, and I have one more semester to go before I graduate with my BA in history. Last semester, there were quite a few times where I began crying (and I mean really crying) because I didn't think I'd be meeting the perceived expectation of graduation in 4 years. No one I knew put this expectation on me. However, because it was so heavily transmitted to students on my campus, I thought it was an expectation that everyone had for me even though it was only a recommendation.

If you can do it and graduate in 4 years (or if that's what you did), that's amazing. But there are many people who feel pressured to try to graduate in 4 years but can't for whatever reason. It may not have a direct effect on their actual school, assignments, and grades, but it can have a very dramatic effect on someone's mental/emotional health, relationships, and personal life in general.

Once I do graduate in December, I will have taken 4.5 years of school to get to graduation with my BA. And this is okay. Taking more than 4 years in college or university is perfectly fine. And if you're thinking of going into graduate school, and even getting a Ph.D., you will be in school for more than 4 years in total.

As I said, if you can graduate from undergrad in 4 years, that is great. But this isn't something everyone can do.