The best four years of your life. That’s how the cliché goes, right? Four years to meet new people, navigate the dining hall, join clubs, party three nights a week and maybe even fit in a little studying and class time.

But for some students, those four years get cut down to three. For a variety of reasons, fewer than a dozen Georgetown students from each class choose to graduate a year early.
For Joan Niesen (COL ’09) the decision just seemed like a logical choice as she had “a ton of AP credits,” essentially coming to school as a sophomore. “I almost went to Mizzou’s [University of Missouri] journalism school undergraduate, but I decided I wasn’t sure that I wanted to do journalism. I also thought I should get a background in something else before journalism,” Niesen says. She now plans to attend graduate school for journalism this upcoming year.

For Anna Schubert (COL ’09), it was mostly a question of finances. “I want to go to grad school anyway, and graduating a year early will leave me with a lot more money left for further schooling,” she says. But for Schubert, the desire to stay close to the Hilltop remains key — she explains that she’d like to attend Georgetown for graduate school in order to stay close to the people she would have graduated with in 2010.

The fine line between the two classes is what challenges these students the most. “I don’t really consider myself to be a member of the senior class,” Niesen says. “That sounds really stupid, but I still just say I’m a junior, since all my friends are juniors and I really just feel like I’m a member of the Class of 2010.”
Adds Schubert: “I’m more a senior on paper than I am in spirit, I think. … I was a year young coming into college to begin with, and I’ll graduate two weeks after my 20th birthday.. Most of the Class of 2009 has had at least two years’ more life experience than I have, so it’s easier to relate to the people in the Class of 2010.”
While the numbers of students who graduate a whole year early is small, it is quite common for students to graduate a semester early or become a part-time student their final semester, according to Sue Lorenson, an associate dean in the College.

“It is encouraging to those who work here that students generally want to stick around, even when they don’t ‘have’ to,” Lorenson says. “About 75 percent of first-year students in the College arrive with some advanced credit. … In this sense, most students could graduate early if they wanted to. However, I’ve found that what attracts students to Georgetown in the first place keeps them here for four years.”

The benefits of staying the full four years are also numerous. The most common complaint from those graduating early is the rushed feeling of cramming a college experience into a fraction of the time their friends start out with. This week has presented another disadvantage, with traditional senior activities such as Senior Disorientation being organized with the 21-and-over in mind.

“I haven’t actually gone to most of the Senior Dis-O activities — because you either have to be 21 or because I’ve had work to do. I’ve had a lot of fun at the activities that I have been to, like the party on the esplanade, because I do have lots of friends who are seniors,” Schubert says, “But I think that Senior Dis-O probably means more to the people who have been here for four years.”

With plans for the future and a strong love of the Hilltop, these students have a unique drive that pushes them forward. “In my experience, most students who graduate a year early are highly motivated and organized,” Lorenson confirms.

But those in a rush to graduate should take heed: That nostalgic can’t-believe-it’s-over feeling comes sooner than you think.
Says Niesen: “It’s still sort of hitting me that this is my last year.”