<p>D2 has the potential to graduate after 1st semester Senior year. She is double majoring and would need to take 4 high level classes each semester in addition to 1 gym class each semester. She would also need to take 1 extra class in the summer or maybe 5 classes one of the semesters.</p>
<p>She has not been involved in a lot of extracurricular activities other than a sorority and a small amount of tutoring. She did research for a professor this past summer and held a small internship where she did minor amounts of research and data input. She works hard at school and has had some health issues.</p>
<p>The advantage to graduating early is saving potentially $15,000 to $20,000. The disadvantages will be the stress from taking so many hard classes all at once and not spread out over three semesters. Another disadvantage might be that she won't be able to take on any additional extra-curriculars because of the hard workload nor any internships.</p>
<p>She is a liberal arts double major, Spanish and Sociology, and has no idea what she will do with it. Her passion really is music (not playing) and she has a large following on a music DJ site. She has talked about getting an MBA or grad school in Spanish in Spain.</p>
<p>I am concerned with her ability to get a job, and I am wondering if anyone has any thoughts on graduating early or on finding jobs when you really aren't qualified for anything.</p>
<p>My younger one is only a freshman, she is most likely to double major in Philosophy and Spanish, with the intention of going to law school. She is also going to take some econ and business courses to hedge. </p>
<p>One thing I am pretty insistent on is getting job experience. D1 worked on campus for four years, and worked every summer. D2 is also working in an office for less than 10 hours a week. This summer we’ll try to get her some sort of internship, and she’ll be on her own to get future employment. It is very hard for students to get the first real life job without any work experience, even if it is working as a cashier at Target.</p>
<p>Instead of having your daughter graduate early by taking so many classes, why not have her get a summer job junior year and a job on campus senior year. </p>
<p>I would encourage your daughter to go to her school’s career center, if she hasn’t done so already, to explore what kind of jobs she would be interested in, to get her resume ready, and to find out what companies recruit on campus. Fall is the busiest time for recruiting on campus. We recruit for summer interns and permanents. To get the best candidates we try to hire them for junior summer and offer permanent position after junior summer.</p>
<p>If she is working that hard at classes, it is likely she doesn’t have any time to put into job hunting. I vote for a less demanding load, but devoting an equivalent amount of time to job hunting. The beginning of her Senior Year is the optimal time for her to be contacting companies for that permanent job when she graduates.</p>
<p>By the time a student is a college senior the schedule should be mainly upper level courses in the major. I don’t see why pursuing those should be a burden. You are talking a huge amount of money saved with 7 instead of 8 semesters. The only advantage to doing the extra semester is to take more fun courses or to take grad level courses while an undergrad. Who thinks there will be stress? You or she? Some students thrive on being academically challenged and busy. This isn’t HS where she needs to pad her resume with extracurriculars. If she is already in her third year discuss spreading out the courses to add some music or other subjects she will never have time for later in life. Summer school can be a blast at some campuses, and very expensive at some. She may find that her credentials will improve with more time to take more courses, or have a higher gpa. No correct answer. Know someone likely to get into several medical schools and planning on winter graduation- saves a huge chunk of change.</p>
<p>^ I had the same thought, Munequita. peacefulmom, what is your d thinking about this? If she’s concerned about her ability to perform will with an especially rigorous schedule, that’s worth considering because the higher the GPA, the better her chances at a good grad school program. Perhaps she can put a lot of effort into job-seeking or grad school apps if she spreads out her credits into the standard 8 semesters. Career services at her school may be more geared toward the majority of students who graduate in the spring.</p>
<p>$20K is nothing to sneeze at. Would she have access to that money for grad school if she did graduate early? That’s an incentive. If she chooses grad school and graduates early, what would she do for the 8 or so months between a December graduation and the beginning of her grad program? Does she already have some kind of paid job that could continue after graduation?</p>
<p>How important is the money? How important is the double major? Gotta weight the benefits and decide if the stress is worth it.</p>
<p>Also, if she is going to be job hunting in the spring semester right after getting out, will she be better off staying at the college? That can reduce the cost benefit since she will still be living away from home and have those expenses without much of a job.</p>
<p>My daughter just decided not to graduate this December but to wait until June. Money is not an issue for us but the truth is, college is a once in a lifetime experience and if you can handle the money situation I strongly suggest she continue. My daughter came to this decision on her own and we would have supported either decision but we are glad that she’s decided to stay. Your daughter has 60 years of work ahead of her, six months will not make much of a difference. JMHO</p>
<p>Often, students who graduate in December/January do not find career-track jobs that start right away. (The hiring process in some industries is geared toward new graduates starting in the summer.) And they can’t start graduate programs at that time, either.</p>
<p>So they often spend the spring semester, and perhaps the summer as well, working at a low-paying job either in their home community or the college community, while continuing their efforts to find permanent employment or a suitable graduate program. In this situation, it may not be possible for the young person to be completely self-supporting. The parents may have to subsidize the young person to some extent. </p>
<p>This is not a disaster. In fact, for many students, it works out fine. But it’s something to take into consideration.</p>
<p>That may be true in some industries, but for my son, who graduated last December as an EE, being able to start in January was to his advantage. New year, new budget, quite a few new hires in the 1st quarter, hiring freeze by the 3rd quarter.</p>
<p>Older son is a senior, physics major/math minor. He could graduate this December(or last May) but decided to stay for several reasons. He can take more upper level courses that he would need for grad school (and would have to take in grad school anyways). The profs at the grad schools he spoke to said that Fall admits were the norm and that stipends were not usually available for Spring admits. He did a paid internship at a research university this summer and saw the “otherside”. He wants to enjoy his last year of undergrad before getting into the competitive grad school environment. Fortunately, he has scholarships that allow him to stay the final year with minimal expense.</p>
<p>Realistically, she is going to have a time consuming job search. Stacking that on top of a heavy load will be a challenge. So she may not end up with much of a jump on the job market at all… also, I personally think internships count for at least as much as classes taken in today’s job market. Getting some good internship experience AND having time to job search during her senior year (assuming she does both of those things) would probably be to her advantage. My D1 was even able to get an unpaid part time internship in her college town senior year in addition to the summer internships she had held (she also had a paying job on campus, and did a senior thesis, and methodically job searched starting fall of senior year, so she was HOPPING busy). But she got a job after graduation even with a poli sci major, which is also not one of those super-employable majors. So for her it was overall an advantage to stay through her full senior year. But your daughter has to get the most out of it. Maybe in exchange for tuition from you she needs to agree to do those types of things?</p>
<p>She should be starting soon looking for an internship for next summer if she wants to make sure to land a good one, too.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Study abroad for a semester (use that Spanish!) and graduate “on time.”</p></li>
<li><p>Graduate early and spend the next semester abroad (perhaps teaching English as a foreign language in a Spanish speaking country).</p></li>
</ol>
<p>She is a first semester junior and is studying in Spain. She has never been driven by A grades and is not a perfectionist. She has stayed with Spanish for the learning, and would definitely not if her only goal was to get into grad school. She will likely end college with a b/b+ average (would be higher, based on sophomore and junior grades) . Double majoring works against her in the grade department, but she wants to do it. She wants to be bilingual and that is why she is staying with it. She is an A student in her other major.</p>
<p>She would need to take a heavy course load for two semesters. It would be all required courses for her major. Double majoring results with 18 required courses. Also, no Spanish classes taken before the 300 levels count towards the major. The school has a really inconvenient gym requirement, as well.</p>
<p>I now see the advantages to staying the extra semester if she uses the time to do internships and pursue the career office and graduate studies these next three semesters. I think she would want to stay at school the last semester, and graduate with her friends even if she didn’t need to take classes.</p>
<p>I think the real issue after reading all of your responses is that of her finding a career path or direction for life after college. I can see staying the extra semester if she can do this, but if not, it may just make sense for her to graduate early and use the money and time in another way.</p>
<p>Thank you, everyone, for all of your input!</p>