At the start of May, OHS seniors will finally receive their diplomas and toss up their blue graduation caps, marking the end of one chapter and the beginning of another in their lives. However, another group of students will walk across the stage with them: early graduates.
Although they are juniors, these students decided to skip their last year of high school and begin their respective college and career paths. Students believe their time would be better spent building their careers rather than taking a couple of extra high school classes.
“I chose to graduate early because I thought that it wouldn’t be beneficial for me to take an extra year where I only had to take two classes, and I wanted to get a head start on college,” said Morgan Spector, junior.
Most of these early graduate students have a clear vision of what they want to achieve in their future, from their major to even post-college life. This is one of the main reasons they graduate a year early.
“In college, I plan on being either a biology or chemistry major. I’m hoping to go to UW… the honors program is essentially supposed to be a way where you’re combining two different sources of information to create a more nuanced perspective,” said Grace Schlicklin, junior. “What I would do in UW is biochem and Spanish focus, so I can do a hospitals-without-barriers sort of approach to our southern border here in America.”
However, to receive all their required credits on time, early graduate students must split their high school years and rely on online classes. This intense schedule often leads to burnout, especially when students take multiple challenging courses at once.
“I was not able to do a history class my first year of high school here, so now, as a junior, I have to take APUSH and Gov and Econ, which the [workload] is overbearing, and it was actually so much that… I had to give up a math class,” said Eysho Dodd, junior.
For most high school students, their senior year is a carefree time to enjoy, since their college applications are out of the way. However, because of the intensity of their schedules, early graduates try to make the most of what they can, from senior traditions to making lasting memories with friends.
“You kinda just miss out on your senior year experience… I still have my senior backpack, and I can still go to all the events if I want, like I went to senior sunrise. [It’s probably] just the extra year of friends, with all the events, just having your own senior year,” said Kyla Farcas, junior.
It is the fact that these juniors must leave many of their friends behind that makes them sentimental and wish they could graduate with something they could remember their friends by.
“I wish there were some form of commencement thing done during our senior ceremony, such as… a stoll, [where] they could put a handprint of a bunch of their little junior friends from the year younger than them on it as essentially a way of walking with them at graduation so they could walk together,” Schlicklin said.
Even through all these difficulties and the regret of having to leave their friends behind, early graduates are filled with more excitement to continue their journey of life.
“I feel like I say I regret it a lot now, but my senior year would have played out the exact same way. I would have been sad to leave sports and some friends the same way that I do now, so I would still do it again for the benefits of getting that extra year ahead,” Spector said.
With what remaining time they have left, early graduate juniors will wrap up their work and leave footprints behind in OHS’s legacy.
“There’s a lot of things I’m leaving the school unfinished, and I wish I had the time commitment to be able to do them, but I don’t got enough hours in the day. I’m trying to do what I can while I’m here,” Schlicklin said.
