College Parent Central Podcast
You don’t stop parenting the day you drop your student off to college on Move-in Day. Your role simply changes. (Actually, it’s not simple at all, but it changes.) You’re a parent for life. Join Lynn Abrahams and Vicki Nelson, higher education professionals and former college parents, as they explore the topics that can help you be a more effective and supportive parent to your college bound student. Whether you already have a child in college, college is still a year or more away, or your student is about to step out, start now to gather the information that empowers you to be an effective college success coach to your student.
College Parent Central Podcast
#132 – What’s Your Student’s College Timeline?
You send your student off to college and you’re already anticipating that Commencement Ceremony four years later. But traditional four-year college timelines are becoming less common as students forge their own unique educational paths. In this episode, Vicki and Lynn explore the various ways students navigate higher education today – from gap years that build maturity and purpose to mid-college breaks and an extra fifth year college experience. We discuss how these experiences often lead to greater confidence, improved communication skills, and most importantly, a clearer sense of purpose. We also emphasize how embracing flexibility in college planning and supporting your student's unique journey can lead to greater success and fulfillment in college and beyond. What timeline might work best for your student?
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Welcome to the College Parent Central podcast. Whether your child is just beginning the college admission process or is already in college, this podcast is for you. You'll find food for thought and information about college and about navigating that delicate balance of guidance, involvement and knowing when to get out of the way. Join your hosts, vicki Nelson and Lynn Abrahams, as they share support and a celebration of the amazing child in college.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the College Parent Central podcast. We're glad you are back with us, or with us for the first time. This is the podcast where we talk about all kinds of things that have to do with parenting the college student or a student about to go to college, getting ready to go to college, perhaps still in high school, and sometimes about students who are finished with college and moving on to the next stage. My name is Vicki Nelson and I am a professor of communication, and so I work with students every day, but I am also the mom of three daughters, who have all gone to college and finished and moved on. So I come to this topic both as a professional in higher education and as a mom, and I am here, as I so often am, with my friend and my co-host, and I will let her introduce herself.
Speaker 3:Hi everyone. My name is Lynn Abrahams, very happy to be here today. I also have that two-pronged sort of approach here. I come to this both as a professional and as a parent. I have worked with college students who have learning differences for my entire career and I'm also the mom of two sons who have been in, out through around college. So it's an important topic and sometimes our stories about our own kids come through first.
Speaker 2:Right, and they haven't disowned us yet for talking about them.
Speaker 3:No, no, I've gotten permission For talking about them.
Speaker 2:So a little self-defense. If they want to protect themselves, they need to listen to our podcast, and then they'll see how things go Well, one of the things that we decided we wanted to talk about today is the timelines that so many students have. Well, every student has a timeline as they work their way through college, and it does seem as though that traditional four years of college students in and out in four years is no longer the norm. There are a lot of different ways, a lot of different pathways that students are taking as they work their way through college, so we wanted to explore some of the different ways students come in, take a break, go out, stay longer, go faster, all of those sorts of things. So, lynn, you were going to start by talking about gap years.
Speaker 3:Yep. So the first thing we want to address is a gap year between high school and college. I would like to start by saying that both of my kids did not do a gap year and they both said it at some point during their college years. They wish they had.
Speaker 2:Mine did not do gap years either, but we never talked about it. I think it might have benefited.
Speaker 3:I think sometimes students rush off to the next step without thinking and I think, as parents, sometimes we support them in doing that because we're afraid that they won't come back. And just looking at some of the statistics from the Gap Year Association, about 90% of students who take a gap year return to college within the first year within that year. And it's still a rather limited amount of students who do this around 2% to 3% of the students in the United States.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's lower than I would have thought, which is low.
Speaker 3:Yeah, low. One reason why I'm happy we're talking about this is that, especially since COVID, I think it's really good to have flexibility in thinking about timelines and I think it's important as parents that we listen to our kids and we ask them questions and work with them around timelines. I think that you know I have met a number of students who show up their first year without thinking it through and one thing I see is that it contributes to sort of a burnout, because they've gone straight kindergarten, through elementary school, junior high, high school, college and they're already a little bit burnt out. I also think some of the students that I've worked with, if they're not ready academically or socially or emotionally, then it contributes to their feeling not good about themselves and that's not what we want as parents. We want to support their growth and their development.
Speaker 3:There are so many choices out there for gap year also. That's something that has changed, I would say, in the last 10 years. More and more and more programs. There are outdoor programs, there are work-study kind of programs, there are traveling international programs. There are some colleges and universities actually have set up programs for students who want to defer and do something else.
Speaker 2:So the student applies and is accepted to the college or university and then that school provides a connection with a gap program if they want to do that.
Speaker 3:Right, there's also the possibility of not doing one of those programs and working. There are so many benefits to spending time working before college and I could tell when I met my first-year students who had had a gap year and who didn't, because there's more confidence, more maturity, more of those sort of soft skills like communication and even stuff like eye contact and professional you know.
Speaker 2:Well and I definitely see it in the classroom as well and I think sometimes it's that they come with a sense of purpose. They've taken that break and they've had time to think about why am I going to college, and which we talk about a lot, that being important that they think about that and they sort of know what they want out of the experience, Definitely, definitely see a difference in those students.
Speaker 3:And being ready to learn, being ready to choose courses, being ready for the rigor of college matters a lot, and especially since COVID, I have to say things have shifted a little bit and it might take a little longer to get back in gear.
Speaker 2:And to network and connect, that ability to connect with people. And you know, it occurred to me as you were talking about how many varieties, how many different kinds of programs that I think there now are just the way.
Speaker 2:there are college fairs where you know you go and you check out all the colleges and decide which ones you want to follow up with. There are gap year fairs now, where it's you know everybody in one big place and you can go around and really see what the different programs are and collect information. And so even if, even if your student isn't actively thinking about a gap year, it's sort of an interesting way to check it out. Or I'm thinking, if the student is saying I don't know that I want to do a gap year, but parents are thinking I think my student would benefit from a gap year If you could get them to go to the gap fair with you, they may see something that really sparks their interest. In that. We did a podcast with Jay Goslin, who was the founder of a great gap program called Discover Year, and we'll put we can put the link in the show notes.
Speaker 3:it's in canada, I don't know how those relationships are going right now I don't know if they still do but um, it's in toronto, I, I think.
Speaker 2:Um, so, and what was interesting about that is it would, if a student decided to do that, they could do it as a residential program and it's a chance to have a little bit of a sort of international experience at the same time, and I thought the program sounded wonderful. It was really geared on those skills and all and they deal with people in the business community and it's a residence program, and so there are so many different choices program, and so there are so many different choices.
Speaker 3:And I don't know what you think of this, vicki, but I would suggest that students apply to college and get deferred. Yes, because they're in that role. Why not use that energy to do the application process, do some choosing about kinds of schools and then make that decision to put it aside. Right, because?
Speaker 2:that means you've got that confidence, you've got that assurance that when you're done with your gap year you know what you're going to do and you know where you're going to be and you don't have to spend any mental, energy and physical time over during your gap year in the application process and the waiting process and the decision process. That's all behind you. And I suppose it would be possible a student could do a gap year and by the end of the gap year say you know, that place that I thought I wanted to be isn't where I want to be. And then they do apply somewhere else.
Speaker 2:But having that in your back pocket would be really good, absolutely.
Speaker 3:It's important, as you look at colleges, to find out what their policies are around deferring. And the other suggestion I would make is that it's really important for students and parents together to sit down and have a plan of action. You know why am I doing a gap year? What am I hoping to accomplish? You know what am I doing and having conversations around that, because it will set the stage for a productive year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and to really have a sense of what are you expecting from a gap year. What are the, you know, as teachers in the classroom, we talk a lot about outcomes.
Speaker 2:You know what is the outcome we want for this student at the end of this course or this unit or whatever, and so for students to have some sense of what are their objectives or their outcomes. Why am I doing this? What do I want from it? And that would help narrow down some of the all of the many, many possibilities for kinds of gap years. You know, depending on what you want, some programs are going to be more what you want to look at.
Speaker 3:I do think it's important to support our kids in the fact that there's flexibility here and it's becoming more and more common and more and more students are doing this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, certainly something to think about, and you know that sort of leads me. One of the things I wanted to talk about was actually a post-grad year. A high school post-grad year was actually a post-grad year, a high school post-grad year, and I think there is sometimes some confusion about gap year versus post-grad year. They're not the same thing, it's a different thing. And a post-grad year, you know, when you graduate from high school, that doesn't necessarily and automatically mean you're ready for college. Some students need something a little more and maybe a gap year is what they want to do, but maybe they want to spend another year of high school, but differently. I think that the key is a post-grad high school. Post-grad year is a fifth year of high school, but it is entirely different. It's not just staying where you are for another year, it's a fifth year and it's usually in a program that's very specialized for students who already have their high school diploma. They go somewhere else.
Speaker 2:Often, a lot of private schools have specific post-grad programs. There would still be other high school kids there, but then there would be this cohort of students who are in this post-grad program with a curriculum that's designed especially for them. And the interesting thing is, this is a student, then, who already has a high school diploma, so you then have completed all of your requirements. Interesting thing is, this is a student, then, who already has a high school diploma. So so you you then have completed all of your requirements. So it leaves you open to be able to take different kinds of classes, different things that you want to do, because you're not checking off those boxes of the things that you had to graduate so less pressure, yes, and more creativity in you know again, knowing your objectives.
Speaker 2:What are you hoping for this year? And there are about 150 schools, I think, that have gap year programs. They started in New England some of the private schools in New England, so there may be more in that area of the country. Some are day programs but a lot are boarding programs. So a student would give a student also an opportunity to live away from home, live in a residence kind of environment and have this transitional year.
Speaker 2:And there are a lot of different reasons that students can do it. Sometimes there are students who just need a little more maturity, they need a little more time. And sometimes there are students who are very academically strong but just want this time because they socially or whatever, need that. Athletes sometimes do a post-grad year because they're still eligible to play and they use that year to either mature as a player so that they may be more desirable and able to play in college, or sometimes to improve their grades so that the grades balance with their athletic abilities and they're more apt to get you know. And sometimes some students because somewhere in high school they really hit a bump in the road. They had an illness or a family crisis or a death in the family that really left them with some gaps.
Speaker 2:And so they want to. You know, fill that in or just plain give themselves some distance from a poor high school experience. I want a year.
Speaker 2:I want a year before I go and I want to enter college with a positive, strong year of high school behind me and it's going to help me with that. It's going to build my resume, it's going to up my grades, it's going to I'll be able to do better on test scores. Students might actually do the same thing you were talking about with the gap year they might apply to college and then defer and then do this post-grad year. But some students may also decide, unlike the gap year, that they want to wait because they're going to be a stronger candidate after this year of post-grad. So it's really something. It's not for all students, but they get an opportunity to do something significantly different, to have smaller classes, to build relationships with faculty which will help them when they want to do that on the high school level to experience living away from home, to explore a different part of the country perhaps, and that may affect where they decide they want to go to college. You know, maybe I'm from the Midwest and I do a post-grad year in New England and I say you know, I'd like to stay in New England now to go to college and they mature a little bit.
Speaker 2:So students want to look carefully at programs in the same way as gap programs. Is it the right fit? What do I want out of it? They also, I think, need to be prepared to explain to friends, to family, to other people what it is they're doing and why they're doing it. I didn't get held back in high school. It's not that I failed out of high school or anything. I have a real purpose of doing this very special kind of program. But they may get questions, they may have some feelings when their friends go off to college and they should be prepared a little bit for some feelings in that way. But for a lot of students it can be a really good thing.
Speaker 3:And the fact that more and more students are doing alternative things helps. Yes.
Speaker 2:It's just another path, Yep yep.
Speaker 3:Another thing I wanted to talk about was taking some gap time in the middle of college. So one of my sons did that. One of my sons did that. He was heading towards his senior last semester and decided to take one semester off just to work, stay in town and work, and I think he needed a break before he jumped into at his school. They had a big final project that they needed to present and it gave him more time and he got to make some money and he got to stay around the community. It was really helpful to take time right smack in the middle. So you know, again, it's not for everybody. Some students may lose their rhythm if they do that.
Speaker 2:Yet some students, like my son, Josh, who just who spoke up and said this is what I need.
Speaker 2:I need a breather, yeah, yeah, and you know, as you're talking about that, I think one thing that might be really important that students and parents both understand is the idea of what a leave of absence is, because you don't you don't withdraw from college, you don't drop out of college.
Speaker 2:If what you want is a breather, right, and you, and you know, know you're going to return, so students can take. Policies are different at different colleges, but all colleges have some kind of policy for a leave of absence, which is taking a break. It's a temporary leaving of the college with the intent to return, and that's the difference between a leave of absence and withdrawing. If you withdraw, you're done. You might decide later to return, but a leave of absence is really that you intend to return to the same institution, and some students take it because they need the break that you're talking about, but it could be because of an illness or a family crisis, a lot of those sorts of things, a death in the family, something that's pushing them off track, and they say I need to take a leave, I need to deal with this thing whatever it is, and then I plan to come back.
Speaker 3:You know, it could be as simple as some mental health issues where it's just it will be better to take a breather.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, I think, much like a gap year. It's important that students have a plan for how they're going to use that time and and how they're going to use that time. May simply be I'm going to work on my recovery um doesn't mean I have to go to work or I have to be in a program or something, I just you know but but start out with a plan of how they're going to use the time and how they're going to return.
Speaker 3:You know you and I talk a lot about having conversations with our kids and how different it is at this stage of their lives for parents and kids to talk. It is different because you are more of their coach and you really are listening to them and why they need to do what they need to do and you can be really. It can be a wonderful time to connect with your kids around what they're doing and it's a more equal relationship. It's a more partnership type relationship than when they were younger and the more you do that the more that partnership feels comfortable, I think, to both.
Speaker 3:And that goes on into adulthood. Now that our kids are older, I mean it's just so much fun you know talking, yeah, it's having a.
Speaker 2:I mean, your child is never your friend in that same way, but it is more similar in that way. You know one thing I think, though, whether it is a leave of absence or withdraw, some students may withdraw because they know that they want to return to college eventually, but not to the same place, and that may be it too. But I think, whether it's a leave of absence or withdrawal, that it's important that students and parents talk to the financial aid office before they do it, because, I mean, if they are taking a leave of absence, they are still considered a student of the college, they're still affiliated, but you want to find out what the impact is going to be on financial aid, and definitely, if a student withdraws from college, they have six months before they need to begin to repay their loans, and they need to be prepared and be aware of that. So, before doing anything where you step out, you really want to touch bases with the financial aid office.
Speaker 3:So here's another population of students, totally different group, totally different group, and that is the student who takes a long gap. And I worked at a community college for a while as a learning specialist and I met many students left school, many women left school, went and had families and then came back and they were so pleasant to work with. I mean, these students were so much fun because they came back with such a clear purpose. They were so excited about getting their bachelor of arts degree, you know. So the students who leave for a chunk of time, it does. There are places to come back to where they'll get lots of support in finishing this degree. So you know that's sort of the long gap and return, you know. Student.
Speaker 2:And you know there are a lot of names for those students. They sometimes, you know, sometimes they're called dropouts, you know, and you know there are a lot of names for those students. They sometimes, you know, sometimes they're called dropouts, you know, but, um, more recently they're stopouts, yeah, or sometimes they're called comebackers or potential completers, students who've been out for two or more years yeah, um, it's a pop and but unfortunately, sometimes they're the forgotten students. But it's a population that is growing of students who started college, left and then, years later I had a sabbatical two or three years ago, and this actually was the topic of my sabbatical, and so I sort of tried to rack my brain a little bit and say what did I do? But because of that, I have actually a couple of statistics that are sort of interesting on this, and one is thinking about the reasons that they leave, and often it is to have a family or finances.
Speaker 2:So 23% of those students who leave may leave because of financial reasons Makes sense, but 27% 27% because of personal commitments, and that would be things like having a family, or just I have to take care of my aging parents or I have a sick child, and then physical and emotional health is 13%, and that number is probably growing more and more. But then what was interesting is the reasons that they choose to come back, and I think the obvious reasons that they choose to come back are often that we think in terms of a promotion or job mobility. You know, I'm in this job and and now I found out that if I get a college degree I have more options. So about 18% come back because it would do something, would help them with their career. But what was really interesting to me is about 34% of those students tend to come back because they just want to finish what they started. I got started on this thing and I want to close the door on it, I want to finish and another 18% because they want to accomplish a personal goal.
Speaker 2:It was a personal goal of mine and now I'm ready to finish that. So the reasons for leaving and the reasons for coming back can vary a lot. And you know, we talk a lot in higher education about persistence and those are the students I mean in our higher ed lingo. Those are the students who start as a freshman and finish in four years. That's our persistence rate, the number of students that graduated the end of four years. But I think when you're looking at this population, we think more about their perseverance. They didn't persist, they didn't stay, they took a break, they did whatever they had to do, but they persevered and they came back. Um, it's really an amazing group of people. It's an amazing group of students.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, and and I I have I have actually two quotes that because I did the- you know, I spent time on this um and one was and my parents should hear this um that the the more positive enabling relationships a student has in their lives, the more likely they are to return to school. So if your student, you know, takes that break and it's become starting to becoming to become more than a short break, it's developing, long-term, staying positive, enabling and helping them move forward in their life, they are really much more likely to return. And the other one really has to do, you know, we're talking about students who choose to take this long break. Some students which was really a little more the focus of what I was looking at are students who leave college not by their choice. They're dismissed, they're academically dismissed because they weren't ready or because you know, whatever reason. And and it it's sometimes a little harder for them to come back. Oh sure, because they have to build the confidence and that's where those positive relationships for parents.
Speaker 2:But the quote that I have came from one of our favorite books, which is the gift of failure, by jessica leahy love it absolutely and we can link to it in the show notes, but the quote quote was in her book, but it actually isn't her quote. She's quoting a high school teacher named Jonathan Shea and he put it this way, quote students recover, People do it all the time and the failure helps them learn about themselves. First, they learn that people want them to be okay. Second, they learn that they can overcome a problem, but that work and attention are more important than genius or perfection. Students need to fail because this is when they learn to succeed. And I, you know, I think for me, for this population of students, whether the failure is that they failed out and were dismissed or just that they failed to persist to continue straight through the value that they get from it is more than we sometimes think about.
Speaker 3:And that's one of our repeating themes as well that students learn from their mistakes as well. That students learn from their mistakes. They learn when things don't go according to plan.
Speaker 2:They often learn tremendous amounts and those students who are short-term or long-term in the middle gap need to take the initiative to return. Colleges aren't chasing when you're in high school. The colleges are chasing you down. They want admissions and they're after you.
Speaker 3:Later on not so much.
Speaker 2:They're not, but if you know the student just reaches out to the admissions office or whatever, and often a readmission to the same institution is a very simple thing. It's not the whole big ordeal that admissions was eventually yeah. So I want to talk about another group, and that's a group that doesn't leave but might be spending more than four years to finish their degree Yep.
Speaker 2:Which is becoming much more the norm. Graduation rates calculate a six-year graduation rate because the number of students who are spending more than four years to complete their degree is growing, and these are students. Some of these students enter college and I've advised some of these students planning on five years. I know I'm not going to be able to take these heavy loads. I want a slightly lighter load each semester because I'm going to be better able and it's okay with me if it takes me five years to amass the courses and the credits that I need. And then there are other students who planned on four years but life happened and it could be they fooled around too much. It could be that something happened in their life an illness, a family death, a family crisis and they take longer. And sometimes we call these students super seniors because they've already done that route of being a freshman and a sophomore and a junior and a senior. And here they are continuing and they're what we call super seniors. But they need to realize that they are more the norm now that it takes a little longer. So it could be because not necessarily, but because they changed a major too late, perhaps to be able then to finish in the four years. Maybe they transferred. That doesn't necessarily mean it's going to take them longer, but it just depends on what's going on, those lifestyle choices, um, that they have made that may have slowed them down. Sometimes they have to repeat failed classes or, um they're they missed scheduling certain requirements when they needed them, class rotations the things that they needed weren't offered when they needed them and it was a little bit out of their control. They've withdrawn from too many classes. You know a student will be having trouble in a class. They say, oh, I'm going to withdraw and that's fine. Sometimes I always say the W stands for wisdom. But if they do that too many times now, they're behind in credits. So the bottom line is often students need to raise their GPA. Perhaps it's too low to graduate, or they need credits, or they need requirements, and so they become a super, super senior.
Speaker 2:And I think there are a couple of things for them to think about. First is both they and parents need to come to terms with it. It's going to take longer Sometimes. For parents that means thinking about the finances. This is going to be more time For the student to recognize. They may feel a little out of place because their friends may be graduating and they're still hanging around. Parents and students need to talk about it.
Speaker 2:That's a theme we did, that's one of our themes when in doubt, talk to your student and I think for parents to remind students that they're not alone in this and to really talk together about what their expectations are for this extra year um, and to for students to work with their advisor to make sure that they are now checking all the boxes and doing um, and for parents to talk to the financial aid office to see whether aid continues or or what um, because it's going to be a different kind of a year and the more that the student can make it feel like a different year, I think, the more comfortable some students are in being super seniors.
Speaker 2:So, for instance, if they just need credits not certain courses, but just credits thinking about maybe heavier internship credits, getting out, doing things that are going to get them experience and get them off campus a little more, doing other things, doing more community service, getting out in the community, working, and then also thinking, okay, I'm spending an extra year, I know a few things.
Speaker 2:Maybe they can share some of what they have learned with other students by being a TA, being a mentor, being a peer advisor or a tutor? If they just need credits, could they study abroad? Could they study away, which is where you don't go abroad but you go somewhere other than where you've spent four years? I just need to get some credits. Does my college have a partnership with another school in another part of the country? And could I have that sense of doing something different? You mentioned maybe doing informational interviews, looking at career options, working on building their resume, applications for jobs, joining a professional organization related to your career and getting involved in that, or just plain doing some things you didn't have time to do any other time. Join a club, do something creative or whatever. So whatever students can do to make that fifth year feel a little different that often helps.
Speaker 3:Another group of students in that fifth year is the growing group of students who are getting their master's degree along with their bachelor of arts degree. More and more colleges are offering a fifth-year program that adds in the master's degree, so that's also another group of students, right.
Speaker 2:And so they often start in their junior and senior year doing some classes that count toward the master's, toward the master's degree. And then they just stay instead of going off somewhere else. Yeah, that's something, and it feels like investigating a five-year master's. When you're just coming in as a freshman, it feels like it's a really long way away.
Speaker 3:But looking at that, so the last group of students, yeah are the fast track students.
Speaker 2:So these are the students who don't even want to spend four years. They aim to try to finish in three or sometimes three and a half years. And if that's what you want to do and a lot of students do and more and more are, because it saves you a year of tuition, right, uh, and and and it also some students do it just because they're so anxious to get out. I want to get out. I have an advisee right now who's working on finishing. Um, he will. He will be here next year. He has one more year. It would be his junior year, but it will be here next year. He has one more year.
Speaker 2:It would be his junior year, but it will be his last year. And I said why? I'm not telling you shouldn't do it, but what's your rationale, why do you want to do it? And he said I just want to get out there, I want to be doing this, I don't want to sit in the classroom learning about this anymore, I want to do it. They still have to do the same number of credits, take the same number of courses and everything. So it really takes a special student who really is focused.
Speaker 2:And I had a student, an advisee, a couple of years ago she finished a couple of years ago who finished in three years and she did everything. I mean she still was in clubs, she still worked at the radio station, she worked on campus, she did all kinds of things. But she had been very focused very early on, even in high school, and by the time she came to college she had done a couple of AP classes, advanced placement classes and taken the test. So she had college credit for her psychology and, I think, her math and a writing class or something like that. She had done some dual enrollment classes where, as part of your high school curriculum, you take a college class.
Speaker 2:Some high schools offer this and some don't, but she had done a couple of dual enrollment classes. She had done a couple of summer classes so that she had gotten some college credit, and she had done a couple of CLEP exams, which it's C-L-E-P that's our jargon which are college-level examination program classes where a student picks a subject maybe that they already know something about, they study it, they get some textbooks, they study it. I think it costs about $60 or $70 to register and take an exam and if you pass the exam you have credit for the course.
Speaker 3:And that's a lot cheaper than three credits, which is expensive.
Speaker 2:So by the time she was a freshman, she was really a sophomore and then she did things like you could take. An average load is between 12 and 18 credits a semester. Three credit classes, so you take between four and six. Most students take about 15 credits a semester. Three credit classes, so you take between four and six. Most students take about 15 credits a semester. Five classes she did six every semester and she also, I have to say, graduated with a 4.0.
Speaker 1:Unbelievable. She was an amazing kid.
Speaker 3:This is unusual.
Speaker 2:So a lot of people aren't going to do all of these things, but it's just the array of things that she can do. I was her advisor. She worked very closely with me to make sure she was getting the right things and when were things going to be off.
Speaker 3:So this is a real student.
Speaker 2:Yes, this is a real student. This is amazing. And she went on to become a teacher. She went on and did it.
Speaker 2:She was a communication undergraduate and then she said you know, I think what I really want to do is teach. And so she went on to get a master's in education and become a teacher. So she did all of those things. Some students might need to be prepared for a little less free time as they do all of this. She was just so efficient that she was able to do it all. Um and oh. The other one was winter intercession and classes, and she, she did those. So that was all the stuff that this particular student did. But, uh, mix and match and and you really can, with some focus and planning and carefully working finish in three students in three years.
Speaker 3:So the bottom line is that there are many ways to do college and it depends on the student, it depends on the family, it depends on so many things, but there are choices and it's not the same way for every student, right?
Speaker 2:I mean, it just isn't right and coming in with a plan and then being flexible. Yeah, so there are students who come in with the fast track I'm going to do it in three years and then they find out no, it's going to take me four. Um, because? Because I recognize that six classes a semester is too much or whatever.
Speaker 2:Or students who think they're going to do it in four years and they end up in five years, or students who think they're going to come in and then go out and they'll be done and they take a gap. It's really exciting to think about how many different ways there are to do college now. So students and parents need to talk, need to think, need to lay out all the options and investigate the options, investigate the gap years, the post-grad, the things you can do to speed yourself along and decide what feels right absolutely.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so well, that's your homework parents, to have some conversations with your student about expectations. You know, if a parent thinks it's going to happen in three years and the student is thinking I'm going to take four years at least, you need to talk and decide. You know what's going to work. So we hope this gave you some things to think about and to talk to your student about, and we are really appreciative that, if you're still here, you stuck through to the end with us and we hope you have wonderful conversations with your student about how it goes. And please check out the College Parent Central website. We will have show notes there with a couple of links of things that we've talked about, and if you know anyone who you think would find this podcast helpful or the website helpful, please pass it along, because word of mouth is often the best. So thanks so much for being here with us and we will see you next time. See you later.