Ask yourself this—Is your future based on how you graduate or if you graduate? Your peers don’t make your future, you do. If all your peers decided to jump off a cliff to their own demise, do you need to jump off too? Just because they did? No, I don’t think so. You and you alone are in charge of your future. How you get there is not what is most important as actually getting there. Stop putting so much pressure on yourself. You have no one’s expectations to live up to but your own. Think about it. Life is not perfect, the sooner you realize that not everything can go according to what you want, the easier life will be. We all have to learn to roll with the punches instead of letting small pokes and jabs put us down for the count

Ooo- I can very much relate to this! I graduated 2 semesters after the people I entered my program with and at the end, when it was all of their final semesters and all the professors were discussing post-grad things like everyone in the room was graduating when that was not the case? I felt really upset, angry and down on myself not to mention the stress of simply doing all the work I needed to get done.

I don't know your situation and why you're a bit behind your classmates but, mine was a professor MASSIVE f-up during my 1st semester in advice she gave me that put me another semester behind already being 1 semester behind because I refused to take out a second student loan. It did help to remind myself that I was graduating with significantly less debt than my peers- what was being a few months behind their graduation to not have nearly as much debt to pay off when I was done? The screw up on the part of my professor did enrage me though.

The truth is- it just was. I had a really hard time with them leaving while I was still there. But, once that was behind me and I was the "senior" person in the program? I enjoyed being the wealth of knowledge about the program, about what we were learning, about where to go for the correct answer so you didn't find yourself in the situation I was in. And now, a few years out of it all I realize that if I had attempted to do what needed to be done to graduate alongside them? I wouldn't have graduated at all- it would have been WAY more than I could handle.

I had so much going on in the background while I was trying to complete the program and looking back on that- that I graduated at all is something I am able to commend myself for.

And some of my classmates went on to do very well in their field and some didn't and I myself did it for a while and now am on an extended break from it to be a mom during a pandemic- something I would have never expected!

I agree with mtd in that when you graduate and how long you take to do so ultimately doesn't matter- it just feels really important when you're in the thick of it- I know that from personal experience. But, the more important thing in the long run is finishing and getting the degree you are after- your future employer doesn't put any real weight on how long it took you, they just want to know you have the knowledge and skills to do the job you are hired to do.

Try to do you- I know it's hard. But, try to give yourself some compassion for whatever reason it is that you are a little behind your peers and know in the long run it's not going to matter.

*hugs*

Hello Sadj. Welcome to DS.

I didn't have the stability or resources to finish HS on schedule, much less start college with my age peers. Most of my age peers had already graduated before I earned my way into those hallowed academic halls, and even then I wasn't able to hold a streamline course through the gauntlet. I was older than the professors during my last college classes. Here in my senior years I am grateful for that demographic weird. It taught me that education is more about learning than keeping up with the pack. Learning remains a stimulating gift for my daily life. It's a good day when I learn something, even when I don't much like the lesson.

But that is me. . .

Gentle support while you find your own path. Welcome aboard. Sort freely. Sort often.

I started college a year after I graduated from high school due to leaving home first and needing to work to support myself. Most of my friends from home were starting college while I worked. Once I was in college, I was a year or so older than my college class. That felt weird to me. I felt way older than everyone else but that might have just been because of my upbringing and back ground. That one silly year felt like a life time, at the time.

So I get kind of feeling self conscious about it at first. The good news is that none of it actually matters, ultimately. It really doesn’t. There are so many people of all walks of life in college getting their education.

In my mind who wants to be part of the herd all the time. You are on your own path. I think it’s cool.

Welcome to the anxiety board at DS.

In writing it out, you've let it go.

One of the best gifts we give our peace of mind is to accept that how long it takes us to complete a goal is not the most important moment.

I ended up taking a two year break before I completed the requirements for my associate degree. I am better for having taken the break, the slow-down, because I am comfortable with the result.

Stop, pause, breathe, repeat until calm and clear headed.

You're on the path to your goal, not anyone else's.

I think people graduate at different times all of the time in college, and even in high school. I did. My tangent: I had to drop out of college because of domestic violence. That infuriated me. I was 19 and turned 19 in a women's violence shelter instead of continuing school. I ended up being "taken in" by an unscrupulous "Christian Family," who was helping... (using the hell out of me,) and I was trapped in minimum wage hell for quite some time. Somehow, I broke out, don't know how. It could have been her screaming about how satan was polluting my mind that did it. This led me to throw my stuff into the trunk of my car and drive away quite literally into the sunset. Maybe it's because I had a relative who was an educator. Who knows. So, I went back to school at 24 and then finished by B.A. at 27. My plan was to graduate at 22, but seeing as someone wanted to destroy me and lay me low, stalk me all over the state, well let's just say that threw it off a bit... I graduated from university with high honors in December-off from the usual May. I could not have been happier. I was just glad I was not on the street anymore, hungry, without home, hunted down and cast out. I've been stalked since, amazingly. But I graduated from school!!! I wasn't supposed to succeed at anything-ever-being intrinsically worthless as he had stated this was inherently impossible. And, being female, I should not have dared read or even speak. I mean who did I think I was?? I ruined the narcissist's plan. Such a pity. I'm sure I should have apologized to him by now for having the audacity to enroll in school and *gasp* graduate. My point here is while I can see you are disappointed, it really is a matter of perspective. I was so upset that I couldn't do it at 22, but by the time I was 27, I was so happy I forgot all about the delay.