Coming in as a freshman, most students are on track to graduate after four years. However, some students at Bluffton University graduate after only three years. This is the case for senior Claire Clay, public relations major, and junior Hannah Conklin, convergent media major.
There are multiple paths to early graduation. One way is coming to Bluffton with college credit already. Some high schools have the option for their students to take dual credit through a local college or university, or the school offers Advanced Placement classes as ways for their students to earn college and high school credit.
Another way students may graduate early is by taking classes over the summer. If students want they can continue taking classes after the end of the school year by taking summer classes for credit.
Senior Claire Clay photo by Nicole Centofanti.
A third way for students to be an track for graduating early is by overloading on classes. This means taking more than 17 credit hours per semester. To do this, for students who are not in the honors program, if one wants to take more than 17 credit hours they will have to pay “x”-amount of dollars per-extra credit hour.
Clay came to Bluffton University expecting to graduate with the class of 2019. She is now graduating this year with the class of 2018.
“Originally, I wanted to graduate early just so I could kind of move on from the whole college life,” said Clay. “Once I got started on that path, even until this year, I’ve always been goal oriented, and I like to achieve things. I felt like, you know, college isn’t really my forte right now, but graduating early could be my biggest accomplishment.”
Junior Hannah Conklin photo by Nicole Centofanti.
When Conklin came in as a freshman, she was in the class of 2020. However, now she will be graduating in May 2019.
Conklin came to Bluffton with 20 credit hours completed from when she was in high school.
“I started taking college classes online my junior year of high school through the state of Ohio’s program, and while I was doing normal high school classes, I was also taking classes online getting dual credit,” said Conklin.
Conklin said she had taken summer classes as well.
Clay said graduating early has a “two sided” feeling.
“On one side, I’m really proud of myself and the accomplishments that I’ve made to get here,” said Clay. “I worked really hard. I had to overload. I did some classes in the summer, and I had classes when I came in.”
However, Clay will not be graduating with some of her friends from the junior class.
“It’s also sad because I’ve developed such great friendships with people here, and now I’m kind of leaving them,” admitted Clay, “even though I know college friends are supposed to be your friends forever.”
