Graduating early is a way to get ahead in developing your life, but what all does being an early grad entail? I am one of the many graduating a semester early, ready to pursue what all the real world has to offer me. In fact, I have already gotten a taste of what happens after high school during the past summer as a dual enrolled student — and I want to go back.

I leave behind opportunity. I leave behind clubs, contacts. But I leave to greener pastures; I exchange a land of opportunity for another. College provides more than just a diploma or an education — it provides windows: College is another realm when it comes to the availability of internships, and clubs do not have to meet before or after school to accomplish minuscule things. After humanities are out of the way, one also has access to a more specialized education, designed to help prepare students for potential career paths.

And I leave behind friends, but school is not the end-all. College is a place to make new friends, not to mention there is a general higher level of maturity at college: people are there to fend for themselves, and oftentimes cannot afford to fool around with the thousands of dollars they may have at stake. Plus, who is to say that you will leave everyone behind? You always have the freedom to contact you friends back in high school while you are in college, or elsewhere for that matter. Not to mention, visiting hours are very lenient, and they have unstandardized the orange jumpsuits.

I leave behind the people that have taught me, the people I have taught — but learning is a lifelong process. We will always have mentors and students as we have the desire to learn.

In the outside world, you take on the responsibility to make the seemingly right choices on your own. You are free from the institution that has conditioned you for years to conform to others; you can be your own person, whoever that may be, or wherever that may take you.