Graduating early can be scary or stressful when school is the only thing you have ever known. Leaving early from your friends and the people you have grown with for the last 4 years, but having a plan and a clear path can make it a lot less scary and stressful.

Knowing what you want to do after you graduate is very important. Knowing the direction you’re going in can also help you decide whether graduating early is good for you or maybe not.

“Make sure you have a plan on what you want to do after you graduate,” said senior Isaiah Fullwood. “I want to go into musical production so I decided to graduate early to have the opportunity to get started as soon as I can for that. Getting started with classes in the fall or spring can help me get ahead with the year of college I’ll have, graduating early gives me more  time to work toward my goal.”

The process of graduating early can be easy and using your resources to get where you need to go can help you achieve these goals. Maybe you didn’t have to plan on graduating early but you ended up having the credits you needed to graduate early.

 “Talking with my counselor helped me,” said senior Ashlyn Darby. “She helped me make a plan this year for what I needed to do in order to graduate early. I also already had most of my credits to do so.”

Not only does graduating early give you the opportunity to focus on yourself, or your mental health but it can also give you some time to have some fun or to have a little break before going  back to school for college or just to travel and spend some extra time with  the people you love.

“I wanted to have more time to work and prepare for college rather than only 2 months in the summer,” said senior Ashlyn Darby. “When I graduate I’m going to work and save some money for college and focus on myself. Spend some time with my family before I leave for college, I also might travel a little. Graduating early was pretty easy to do, I say do it if you can.”