<p>I'm currently considering either graduating one year early from high school or doing dual-enrollment at our local university. Besides the social aspect of graduating early, would it be helpful short term or in the long run for an engineering major?</p>
<p>Only in the sense that you would pay one less year of tuition. Otherwise no.</p>
<p>Many employers will consider you “too young” to have responsibilities, however it will alow you to have more years of experience</p>
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Dual enrollment in HS and a local university can be helpful for getting into college, and can offer transfer credits that permit you to graduate earlier from college. As I’ve posted previously, I was in a similar situation to you in HS. Instead of trying to graduate HS early, I became a half-time student at a nearby state university while in high school. I believe that doing this (along with A’s in difficult courses at the college and LOR from the college) was the key reason I was accepted to top engineering schools, like Stanford and MIT, without being in the top 10% my HS class + 500 verbal SAT, without significant ECs, sports, or awards. The classes I took at the local university all were transferable, which helped me finish both a bachelors and masters in under 4 years. I ended up finishing college more than a year early, even though I did not graduate HS early.</p>
<p>What is with this obsession with trying to get things done as quickly as possible? </p>
<p>I was talking to one of my classmates today. an older guy today who has been going to Engineering school for a long time now, he struggled with a lot of personal issues, etc but he never gave up. </p>
<p>If I was a manager, I would hire this guy in a heartbeat over a 20 year old who finished college in 3 years.</p>
<p>Dude, no one is going to have you manage anything important at age 21 or 22 or even age 25, so I don’t really think graduating in 3, 4, 5 or 6 years is really that big of a deal.</p>
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The difference between graduating in 3 and 6 years could easily work out to an extra $100k in tuition. It might also lead to an extra $200k in salary while working. The person who graduates 3 years earlier also gains valuable work experience. In your hiring example, if the candidates were the same age, would you rather hire the new grad who spent 6 years in college or the guy who has a degree + 3 years of a full-time job with relevant work experience?</p>
<p>I’m not saying it’s the right choice for everyone, but there are some clear benefits.</p>
<p>Unless that older person has more relevant experience, I highly doubt it. I am one of the people who reviews and interviews engineers to come in and work and the reason that an older person is hired is because that they have more relevant experience (which they usually do). Someone with no relevant experience coupled with low gpa and finish university in 6 years raises more than 1 redflag… heck I don’t even think it can go past our HR or any HR department of a big company. </p>
<p>Our yearly engineering graduate program hires 8 out of 1000 applicants, would you think there would a filter to cutoff people that are “struggling” and look for people that shows they can achieve such as by graduating faster (in fact there are 2 we hired last year that did just that with relevant co-op experience cause we know that they could handle the stress, and in the end, they are doing quite well).</p>
<p>I am also involve in an engineer association where this has been brought up before and alot of managers and supervisors in different eng companies has said the samething (o yeah, they also said they would also not consider people that went straight to masters without a few years of experience, but I guess that is for another story).</p>
<p>Thank you so much! I also asked my uncle, who is a software engineer for 30+ years, about whether or not being younger would affect what employers would think of me. He said the younger the better. Do you have any thoughts on dual enrollement vs. graduating early? I would go to the same college as I took the dual enrollement classes (my parents aren’t giving me much of a choice since they will pay the tuition) unless I got into a top engineering school like MIT with a large scholarship so my parents could afford the tuition.</p>
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If your parents cannot afford the tuition, some schools will offer a good amount of financial aid, to the point where a merit scholarship is unnecessary. For example, Stanford charges no tuition for most families making under $100k/yr. There is no tuition, room and board, or book expenses for most families making under $60k/yr. I believe MIT has a similar policy for families making under $75k/yr. Both schools have a net price calculator, where you can get more specific details.</p>
<p>My dad has been out of work for 10+ years because he got sick and had to stop work, my mom just started 2 years ago for $20-30k/yr. But, my dad has a lot of investments, so that ruined my sister’s shot at financial aid other than scholarships (she’s going to college next year). I doubt it’s up to $60+k/yr, so that really puts my mind at rest. Thank you so much!</p>
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<p>Dude - Mark Zuckerberg was 21 when he founded Facebook - you know that little company out in CA</p>
<p>Steve Jobs (RIP) was 21 when he started Apple - you know that other little company in CA</p>
<p>If the OP can get out of school earlier, that’s the way too go.</p>
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These individuals are exceptions, and I’d argue that they had a fair number of troubles because of their age. In any case, just look at the average 21 year old and you’ll see that they aren’t really the responsible type. There are exceptions, but you have to prove yourself an exception.</p>
<p>That being said, there is no reason not to graduate a year early if and only if there is no real downside. It’s not worth rushing coursework or skipping activities, but if you just happen to have enough credits to skip without missing out, why not?</p>
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<p>Data10, what university did you actually graduate?</p>
<p>^^ My class rank would suffer because even if I do graduate early, I would still do one year of dual enrollement while others would be taking AP classes, my weighted GPA (out of 4.5) would be around 4.1-4.2 probably.</p>
<p>What I am thinking of doing now is that my junior year of high school I will apply to some prestigious colleges (that have programs for people that make less than a certain amt of $, that we would apply to) and if I got accepted I would graduate early and go. Otherwise, I would continue one more year of dual enrollement and when I graduate, I would continue at that college. How does that sound?</p>
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Stanford – I did a BS & MS in EE + MS in MS&E.</p>
<p>Jeez BEngineer, way to take the wind out of my sails. I struggled my first go round at college and will not be completing my degree in Computer Science around the age of 27. If I read your post correctly, it would seem as though I should just give up.</p>
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It would be wrong to say that taking so long to finish would hurt you. But there’s nothing so especially awful about it that you can’t manage to make it up with a few years of good work.
Plenty of people have managed with an even larger handicap.</p>
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<p>Early graduation from high school is unlikely to be helpful unless you have truly exhausted all educational opportunities there, including being able to take useful college courses while in high school (including dual enrollment).</p>
<p>If you graduate from high school on normal schedule, but have completed useful college courses by then (particularly math and physics suitable for engineering majors), then you will likely enter college with the option, but not the requirement, to graduate a semester earlier than your normal schedule would have been.</p>
<p>How selective of colleges are you considering? At the most selective colleges, graduating from high school early can be a disadvantage when applying, since you will have one year less of a high school record.</p>
<p>When you graduate from college and apply for jobs, nobody will know that you are a year younger than your fellow graduates, until the day you actually start work and fill out your employment paperwork.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus- I would actually graduate 1.5-2 years early from college if I just did dual enrollement without graduating early. I would graduate about 1 year early if I graduated early. I would do dual enrollement my junior year of hs both ways, and then my senior year would be my decision of graduating early or doing one more year of dual enrollement.</p>
<p>sacchi- I want to apply to the more selective colleges with programs that offer free tuition for parents making under a certain amt of $ (the ones that apply to me of course). If I don’t get into a selective college with free (or near-free) tuition, I will be forced (by my parents, who are paying for my tuition) to go to the University of Akron which I would be doing dual enrollement at anyways. I will also have no trouble getting accepted there, except for the fact that I would want to be accepted into the honors college which is more of a challenge.</p>