When I was in high school, I was that nerd. I passed 11 AP classes and 13 dual enrollment courses through a local community college. All in all, I came to ASU with about 80 college credits taken, and 52 of them actually transferred into my major map path.
Throughout my entire high school career, my college and career counselor claimed that taking these college-level courses was the best possible decision I could ever make. In fact, the counselor would come into every class that offered dual enrollment and give the exact same stump speech about how we need to take the dual enrollment courses for reasons x, y and z.
Clearly, I took her advice and ran with it. Don't get me wrong, reasons x, y and z were great reasons and the college credit I received in high school has saved me time and money. In my first meeting with my ASU advisor, I learned that I knocked a full year off of my expected graduation date.
At the time, that was a huge cause for celebration. However, a semester and a half into college, I am starting to realize the drawbacks of my decision to rack up the college credit.
Academic downsides
The first difficulty with my completed credits is the fact that I am taking more difficult courses earlier than I anticipated. A quarter of the courses I was enrolled in my freshman year were upper division, which was and is an exciting experience, to say the least.
But the thing with upper-division courses is that when you enter them, you are expected to have certain skills that are not necessarily a fresh-out-of-high-school student's forte. From time management to 100-page readings to college-level essays, I was thrown into the deep end and had to learn to swim real dang quickly.
From my first day of class, I felt extremely overwhelmed with the sheer amount of work I had to get done. Tack on the fact that I was surrounded by non-freshmen with know-how and knowledge I simply had not yet acquired, and ultimately my first semester turned out to be a highly stressful experience.
After a lot of trial and error, trips to the tutor and asking for help from my peers, I finally felt more comfortable in the new environment college had brought. But still a 0/10 experience — I would not recommend immediately taking 300-level courses as a freshman.
Another bummer I encountered with my current path is the lack of choice in the courses I am able to take. While many students get a lot of free will in how they fulfill their general studies requirements, I only have two classes for which I had multiple options for my entire undergraduate experience.
I am quite sad about this development because the course I chose to fulfill my humanities, art and design requirements has been one of the coolest classes I have taken. I am currently taking Music in America, and it has been fascinating and diverting while still teaching me vital concepts and competencies.
You guys. I literally get to listen to music… for a class. I get to learn about the history of Rock and Roll … for a class. And I get college credit for it. Maybe I'm reverting to my nerd ways from high school, but I think that's pretty cool.
After this semester, I will not have any general studies classes left for my major, and so I will (unfortunately) not be able to take any more if I want to stay the course on my three-year track… alas.
Mental downsides
In case you weren't aware, I had to choose my career path earlier than my peers and earlier than I would've even liked. I want to go into the journalism field, but I am not yet 100% sure about what type of media I want to create.
And wow. There are so many options available to me at ASU's Cronkite School for Journalism and Mass Communication, from broadcast news to digital media to investigative reporting. However, I had to choose between the vast options before I could even explore them fully.
If I had the assurance of an extra year, I would not put so much pressure on myself to find the right path right away. When I was choosing classes for the Fall '25 semester, I needed to make my first decision about whether I wanted to take a broadcast or print journalism class. I remain hopeful that I made the right choice.
Another difficulty I have encountered is dealing with the high expectations I have for myself. I am very thankful that my family does not pressure me to excel in the classroom, but I still feel the urge to make them proud through my academic success.
I have always worked extremely hard to maintain my grades and master class material. This was relatively easy for me to do in high school when I was in a steady situation with the constant support from and structure of the school system I was in.
However, college is a different beast entirely. As previously mentioned, on the accelerated path the courses become more difficult more quickly. Attempting to maintain the same academic record has come with a lot of stress and extra hours studying, which after a while takes a toll.
Social downsides
Beyond the mental and academic challenges that come with graduating a year early lie the social dilemmas of one less year on campus. For example, over the next two years, I will be moving farther and farther ahead of the peer group that I started my major introductory courses with.
A huge relationship-building portion of college is taking classes alongside different people. Through study sessions and shared experiences, friendships are built on a great foundation. However, as I am moving into more advanced classes, I have found that very few of my peers are on the same track as me.
A final downside I wasn't expecting was the sadness I feel in recognizing that I have one less year to make friends and connections. With my freshman year almost over, I can see the sand running out of the proverbial hourglass at an alarming rate.
Already this first year, I have met some of the coolest people I know and I have made friendships that, I feel, will last a lifetime. But my early graduation makes me wonder, who would I have met if I had another year to spend in the university environment?
These thoughts make me hold on tighter to the friends I have made and appreciate them even more, but oh goodness the "what ifs" are hard to grapple with.
Edited by Senna James, Sophia Braccio, Tiya Talwar and Natalia Jarrett.
Reach the reporter at kagore1@asu.edu and follow @kategore_17 on X.
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Kate is a freshman studying journalism and mass communication. This is her second semester with The State Press.
