Early Graduation
Convocation
Early graduation is an option that has become less of a secondary option and more of a common option than it has been in the past.
According to The Wall Street Journal, “Some 2.9% of students who were sophomores in 2002 graduated from high school in three years or less, based on the latest available data; that is up from 1.5% in a previous survey in the early 1990s.” On a more local level, this year 10.51% of Rocky Mountain High School seniors will be graduating early.
There are a few obvious advantages to graduating early. The first and most apparent being that the student is out of school sooner. Some students are able to graduate after the first semester senior year. Another advantage to getting out of high school early is that students can start college earlier and in turn, get out of college early. This early graduation also gives students time to go off and do things that they have always wanted to do, like travel or work and save some extra money for the upcoming expenses of college.
There are a few extra steps to take in order to graduate early starting with getting a parent or guardian sign paperwork having to do with all the legal parts of graduating, making sure to sign up for all the credits needed to graduate, and finally doing a checkout with teachers, counselor, the library, and the fee window to ensure no outstanding fees.
Some students choose to go into careers right off the bat. Rocky student Nathan May graduate early and is going into basic training for the Marines. Nathan says, “I’m joining to protect and serve my country, to protect the freedoms and rights that we hold so dearly here in America. Also, to better myself physically and mentally and to prove to myself that I can do it.” May believes that this has given him an advantage because he has, “more time to workout and prepare for the military.”May said, “ Also, I was able to move my ship date up to February 13th instead of June. I’ll also be able to still walk with our class as a marine in my dress blues.”
“I’ve been to five high schools and was ready to finally graduate,” early 2017 grad Nick Carroll said. “What I’ve most enjoyed doing with my time is sleeping in as late as I want and having nowhere to be at 7:30.” Even though graduating early has advantages, there are some drawbacks, like “not being around people all the time and [not] having the human interactions on a day to day basis.”
Early graduation is not an easy task and does take some prior planning in order to do it. Following all that planning there’s going to be positive and negative outcomes to graduating early whether you just want more human interaction or you’re already getting started in your career. But the seniors graduating early here at Rocky really seem to be enjoying the early graduation life.
Gunnar Anderson is a senior at Rocky Mountain High school who is involved in Wrestling, being one of the team captains he has high expectations for his...
