<p>I just finished my first year of college, and I think i've finally figured out that I want to go for English Education. The problem is, my college has a very rigorous program, which most people start their first year. I also have a few extra courses to take as part of the honors program scholarship.</p>
<p>In order to get all my credits to graduate, it's very possible that I might need to stay for 5 years. This makes me very uneasy. It's not the money issue, I have a great scholarship for the first 4 years. It's just the thought of not being able to graduate with my best friends from my class. I'm sure i'll have underclassmen friends, but it won't be the same.</p>
<p>What’s more important to you, graduating with your friends or setting yourself up for a career that will form the basis for your life for the next 30 or more years?</p>
<p>I think your perspective will be very different three years from now. College isn’t like high school; there’s much more mixing among different graduating classes.</p>
<p>I also think annasdad is 100% right about the relative importance of preparing yourself for a career you want and graduating with the people you started college with.</p>
<p>Depending on the school you’re at you’ll find many of your peers will be joining you in the 5-year plan. It’s not that uncommon at most schools. Congratulations on finding what you want to do! Focus on that and enjoy your education.</p>
<p>It is actually pretty common for college students to take more than 8 semesters (or 12 quarters) to graduate. However, you need to check the cost and financial aid implications of any extra semesters.</p>
<p>But is it that difficult to construct a schedule that will allow you to graduate in 8 semesters? English courses usually do not have super-long sequences of prerequisites.</p>
<p>I would recommend looking into taking a few courses at a cc over the summer during one of your summers. Although if you have honors courses to take, you may need to consider taking them at your school over the summer so you don’t have to worry about transferring credits.</p>
<p>And i agree with above posters- graduating on time is becoming increasingly less common and you will likely have different goals in just a few years.</p>
<p>You have the freedom of taking 5 years to graduate, just don’t complain when you discover that employers have the freedom of refusing to interview you because of your undisciplined slackening. You better be able to convince them otherwise because that is what most of them will think unless you can convince them.</p>
<p>^^ I don’t think you have experience with this. How would they possibly know? I only put my graduation year on my resume, not the year I started (I transferred anyway, and don’t list previous schools). No one asks. After your first job, no one will care much about your education anyway.</p>
<p>Employers couldn’t know. And if they did, why would it be any reason to punish you? Many students take a year off of college to pursue other interests, such as live abroad, teach english, or even start a company.
In short, it’s not a big deal. It may hurt you a bit financially, but unless you’re paying exorbitant amounts of tuition, it shouldn’t be a huge issue.</p>
<p>Well, they could know if they asked for transcripts. (I have taught in four different schools. Only one of them asked for transcripts.) A transcript would clearly show that you’d been in residence at your college for 10 semesters.</p>
<p>Of course, there’s still a difference between knowing and caring. I can’t imagine a potential employer giving a rodent’s behind about this matter.</p>
<p>I think they would only go to those measures if they needed proof that you held a degree. I doubt they would over think the number of years you put in. For all they know, you could have had a serious health concern or family emergency and needed to take a semester/year off. You could have had financial issues that forced you to go part-time for a while. There are also many students who only work towards their degree part-time and take a few extra years to graduate - none of this is particularly relevant to the employer’s needs (well, except maybe a serious health concern, but that is confidential).</p>
<p>Or you could have changed your career goal during your undergraduate years. Which is what actually happened. And it’s a perfectly good reason for graduating in 5 years instead of 4, if you can afford to do it.</p>
<p>There is no shame in taking 5 years. Many do, especially students with co-ops. My s changed his major to engineering, and if he hadn’t loaded up his schedule and picked up 2 classes one summer while interning he might have had to take an extra semester, which may or may not have been paid for by his scholarship. And like you, he wanted to be looking for jobs with his friends and graduating with his friends. If that is important to you, that is fine. It was to him. So look into the possibility of taking a heavier courseload and/or a summer class or two. If you can have it both ways (the major you want and finishing in 4 years) why not go for it?</p>