By Nicholas Maddox Posted June 4, 2015
Graduating early is a great opportunity for anyone who is eager to go to college or the service. It is, however, not a simple task and does take a lot of extra work to earn all of the credits needed for a diploma, but for some students, it’s pretty simple and has been a main priority from the start.
“To be honest, it wasn’t so hard. I already had 16 and a half credits by the end of my sophomore year,” said early graduate Parmsukhveer Kaur. “It was just about getting the next eight. Since we have seven classes, there are seven credits. I substituted an elective to take government at school and now I’m getting my last English credit online through Brigham Young University.”
Also, graduating early means that you won’t be graduating with your class which is more of a sentimental factor in many people’s decision of whether to graduate early or not.
“Yes and no. Yes because I’ve known the class of 2016 since I was in eighth grade so they’re the people I somewhat grew up with. The majority of my closest friends are in the class of 2016. No, because graduating early means I can start college earlier and my career sooner,” continued Kaur.
Graduating early can also be very overwhelming and you need to be a dedicated student to accomplish this task.
“It was a lot more work than I expected,” said Kalie Morgan. “The overwhelming power of stress didn’t hit me until about April when I realized it was actually happening.”
If you are interested in graduating early, you will be visiting the counselors’ office a lot more than usual to make sure you are enrolled in all of the right classes and everything is in order for you to graduate early.
“Mrs. Lynn Ludlow has done a lot for me in figuring out what I need to do and when I need to do everything,” said Kaur. “Another person who has really helped me through all this is Mrs. Roxanne Hardy in the Career Center.”
Ludlow, a school counselor, thinks graduating early is not a good idea unless you have a firm plan and know what you want to do when you are out of high school.
“I don’t think graduating early is a good idea because often they are very young and they get in a hurry to go and if they don’t have a firm plan with what they want to do then I prefer they go to Great Basin and get classes done there and just graduate with their class,” said Ludlow. “If they have been admitted to certain colleges or into the service then I highly recommend to just stay in high school, there should be no hurry.”
If you do plan on graduating early then make sure you know what you want to do out of high school and have a definite plan on what you want to do.
