<p>I've read a lot of articles recently regarding abysmal 4 year graduation rates at many colleges and universities, particularly public ones. Many students (the majority) at such schools, including that of my own, are not graduating within 8 semesters.</p>
<p>What are some steps someone can take, whether it be in high school, right before college, or during college begins, to ensure that they graduate on time?</p>
<p>By not being an engineer.</p>
<p>Maintain close communication with your advisor(s)/your department’s advisor(s), go in with some AP credits, make a 4 year plan. As long as you have a 4 year plan and can accomplish everything on the plan, then you’ll graduate in 4 years just fine.</p>
<p>Memorize your undergraduate graduation requirements and plot them precisely over four years with your academic adviser/s. </p>
<p>@Vctory - I’ve heard it a lot that engineering majors take longer to graduate. Just out of curiosity (not my intended major), why is that?</p>
<p>Make sure you take the correct number of credits each semester, and if you fall behind, either do summer/winter session or overload the next semester. </p>
<p>Actually read the requirements for your major. You’d be surprised at how many people don’t do this.</p>
<p>Get to know your advisor and keep in close touch, especially senior year.</p>
<p>Let your parents look at your degree evaluation online - you’d be surprised at how helpful they can be. </p>
<p>take 15 credit hours each semester. a lot of freshman only take 12 credit hours the first semester in fear of overloading or doing too much work. then they may take 14 or 15 the next semester but then drop too classes because the teacher was too hard and by then they my never graduate on time because they would have to take 18 credits a semester to catch up and based off the the first year they won’t be able to handle that especially if they go to big party schools. they would have to take summer classes or graduate a semester late.
Also they change their major too much and when they finally settle on one they end up having to take extra semesters to get in the classes they need.</p>
<p>I just realized I wrote “during college begins” - I initially meant “when college begins” but wanted to change it to “during college” but I apparently am inept at using backspace. Whoops.</p>
<p>You should have all 4 years of classes mapped out.
Make sure you get your pre reqs out of the way asap.
Also, helps to be in honors that gets first dibs on signing up for a class.</p>
<p>Make a four year plan, so that you know what you have to take when in order to graduate on time. Include all GE, university, graduation, and major requirements. If you ever change your major, make a new plan to see if you can still graduate on time. Take special note of classes that are offered in sequence, have particular prerequisite requirements, and/or are only offered a few times a year. If you ever want to change your plan (because of course offerings or availability, wanting to take a lighter load because of outside commitments, wanting to take an extra class, whatever), revisit your 4-year-plan to check to see if you can make that change and still graduate on time. Plan to take specific required/core classes earlier and leave electives to later (when you can choose to take a different class, if you find that the one you wanted to take is full or cancelled or conflicts with another class). Run your 4 year plan with your adviser. In my opinion, taking longer than four years to graduate should never be a surprise that you find out about in your fourth year. Obviously, anything can happen, but if you’re on top of everything, you should have enough flexibility in your schedule and be prepared enough that you can adjust, if need be.</p>
<p>All of the students I knew (at a large state university) who took longer than four years to graduate did so because they took lighter courseloads (often, the minimum required to be a full time student), changed majors frequently (in which case it’s often a choice to graduate later in the major that you want, rather than to graduate on time in a major that you don’t like), double majored (knowing that it would take them longer to graduate), failed courses (sometimes even repeatedly, which can put you off track in classes that need to be taken in sequence and push back graduation even if you’re only take one class a semester/quarter at the end), or had medical emergencies (and needed to withdraw from courses or take a lighter load). Except for cases that were real unexpected emergencies, most of those students could have graduated on time but chose not to.</p>
<p>@irlandaise The problem with engineering is that it usually involves long chains of pre-reqs. You need to take basic math before calculus, and calculus before more calculus, and then you can’t start physics until you’ve got calc/linear/diff eq, and then you need that physics class for another physics class, etc. It just takes careful planning. If you’re behind when you come in, or if you change your major later, or just don’t plan ahead, those chains can take a long time to complete. And engineering classes are pretty tough to begin with. And it tends to have a LOT of requirements.</p>
<p>That said, it’s definitely possible to finish a STEM major in 4 years. I’m EECS, I transferred twice and lost coursework both times, and I still graduated in 4 years. Some schedules really sucked, but being on track with pre-reqs and taking 15+ units most semesters helped out a lot. Having a lot of credits during earlier years was also good, since I could go down to 12-14 when I had to start taking tough all upper-div tech schedules.</p>
<p>As for general advice, you should try to plan ahead. Not a super thorough plan that you can’t deviate from ever, but a general outline. Know your requirements, how many should you take each semester for a balanced schedule? Are there any chains of classes (pre-req sequences) that are going to cause problems? Are there classes that are offered rarely that you want/need to take? Specific professors you’d love to take a class with? Plan ahead, figure these things out. It’s okay to change as you go, but having a general idea will keep you on track. And after that you can just adjust as you go.</p>
<p>Number of units goes in with planning ahead as well. Most schools expect ~120 credits (4 years, 15 credits/semester). So, make sure you’re on track with the unit requirements, or it’ll take you more time.</p>
<p>I’m a double major and am on track to graduate in four years. I could graduate a quarter early if I wanted to, but since that would require overloading in two other quarters (with computer science classes, no less), I don’t plan to do that.</p>
<p>Key advice:
-Keep in contact with your adviser(s)
-Know the requirements for your school and for any potential majors, and look over them periodically to make sure there’s nothing you’re missing
-Keep an eye on when classes from departments of interest are offered, so you at least have a general idea of what’s offered each term</p>
<p>Another one: If you switch your major, don’t do it at the end of your college career. If you do wait that long, make sure to switch to something whose requirements are very close to the major you’re switching from so you’re not delayed. Switching in and of itself usually won’t delay you, unless you switch late or switch into something with a lot of requirements and prereqs (engineering comes to mind).</p>
<p>–Abuse the heck out of AP credits, if attending a community college or a pretty impacted university such as mine, you’re going to need the priority registration to get all of your classes. Without priority registration, I’d say it’s impossible to graduate in 4 years as an engineer
–If you can’t get a class you need (major prereqs that hold engineers back!), find it at a community college.
–Pay attention to changes in graduation requirements as the new plan may save you some classes – dang it I wasted a GE because they changed the requirements rawrrrrr. But I still got out of another GE that I did not take yet; they wanted to make it easier on the engineers’ eternity to graduate by lessening their requirements.
–Take challenge exams to get out of general education requirements if you can!
–Study so you don’t repeat courses 
Don’t fail prereq courses as an engineer or you’re screwed.</p>
<p>It can be tough, especially if you change your major like I did. Even with the major change sophomore year I graduated on time, but it wasn’t easy. I mapped out what types of classes I would take junior and senior year and knew exactly how many credit hours I needed. I studied the program requirements and I went to every advising session to make sure I stayed on track. After changing my major I needed to take 6 classes (18 credit hours) every semester for my last three semesters. It’s tough, but you can do it. Get on track and stay on track early. Maintain your grades so you don’t have to retake anything and just have a plan!</p>
<p>Planning is very important, like everyone else says.
When I went to college for engineering, there was a 4 year plan of classes. I used that as a map and just picked the electives as needed.</p>
<p>But another key thing is to do well in the classes that you take.</p>
<p>I read stories about people who have family problems or get sick or have undiagnosed ADD/Aspergers or work too much or whatever. </p>
<p>Read the Syllabus. It is a contract/roadmap of the class. It tells you what is due when and how you are graded.</p>
<p>Go to class.</p>
<p>Do the readings/homework for the class.</p>
<p>Watch your grades in the class.</p>
<p>If it is not going well then:</p>
<p>1) GO to professor office hours and talk to them. Not only about the topic, but what successful students do to get an A.
2) Go to the Student Success/Academic Help/Writing center .
3) Talk to your advisor/counselor if you need general help
4) Form a study group.
5) Get a tutor</p>
<p>In other words, don’t flounder on your own. You have paid for college, and part of college are many tools that are there to help you succeed… No need to be embarrassed…be embarrassed when you have been dismissed from college because you have not taken advantage of the above.</p>