I get this question all the time: Why oh why, Tarika, did you decide to leave college early?! How are you missing out on the best four years of your life? Honestly, my answers are pretty simple. So, I’ll outline them here:
1. I Realized I Could
The process started when I realized that I was able to take control over my path through college. It was my freshman year when I realized that college was fundamentally different from High School. In High School, the majority of students are working towards the same goal: getting into and getting ready for college. In college, however, everyone works towards different goals. Some plan on attending graduate school immediately, working four years to prepare for medical or law school. Others plan to enter an established and institutionalized field and hope for three summers of intensive internships to gain the life experience to do so smoothly. This realization gave me the confidence I needed to committing to graduating at least a year early.
2. Money, Money, Money
When I was presented with the opportunity to save a year and a half of college tuition, common sense told me to take it. It was that simple– I took advantage of every opportunity I had in college because I was genuinely grateful to be there. I never let time go to waste, not only because college time is literally money but also because I wanted to squeeze the value out of it while I could. The logician inside of me made me want to ensure that value matches expense and I knew I could get little more value from the additional tuition expenses of another year and a half of school.
3. I Was Ready to Choose my Purpose
I believe that a life without purpose is a life without meaning. As students, we are given a purpose. We know what we’re doing and we know why. We have a community of peers who have been given the same purpose. I knew that I was ready to graduate early because I was ready to discover my own purpose and take action intentionally towards fulfilling it.
While I definitely enjoyed my time on campus, I didn’t feel a need to stay for four years. I was ready to move on after having taken the courses I took and after having met lovely people. I was ready to look beyond what was relevant in school to chart my way through “the real world”.
Overall,
There are so many more reasons why I decided to do this. If you want to chat more, email me or reach out via social media! It was the right path for me, but everyone is different. If you want help or advice on how to graduate early, read some of my other posts or contact me!