# How many school years have you been in college?



## letitrock (Jan 10, 2009)

If you've been to college on and off, then you can calculate how many school years you've had for yourself, for example, if your college has two semesters and one year you only did one semester, and the next year you only did one semester again, then you can count that as one year, ; 

Or if you attended school for the full year except for summer, you still count that as 1 year technically.

If you ended up going to school for like 3 years and a half, then I guess you can round up or down, whichever is better for you I guess


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## sansd (Mar 22, 2006)

I've taken college courses nearly continuously for the past twelve years. Several terms I ended up withdrawing completely, a couple of quarters I did not enroll, and one (just one) summer I did not take anything, but I have still only been out of classes for a few months at a time and have been enrolled for at least three terms each year, so I just went with twelve.


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## Cheesecake (Feb 2, 2007)

2 years.


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## VivaEmptinessRoses (Mar 31, 2010)

4 years


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## CopadoMexicano (Aug 21, 2004)

10 yrs


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## Farideh (Nov 13, 2011)

I've only been in college for one year and then I dropped out after that but I will consider going back in the future.


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## blue the puppy (Jul 23, 2011)

4 years in undergrad, 4 years and counting in grad school.


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## Relz (Oct 31, 2011)

full freshman year, half of sophomore year, and two summer, so I guess that counts as 2 years. But I was only a full time student for one of those. :/ I'm supposed to be a junior/3rd year but I'm not even close.


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## foe (Oct 10, 2010)

I've been going to college since 2001, and I could see myself being there until I die.


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## millenniumman75 (Feb 4, 2005)

It was six for me except I gradurated in March instead of June.


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## Octal (Aug 2, 2011)

Almost 3 so far.


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## obsidianavenger (Sep 1, 2011)

4 so far... still working on undergrad... probably another 3 undergrad plus 5 or 6 for grad school to go. luckily i freakin love being in school


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## talkswithkeyboard (Dec 28, 2010)

Three years.

I finished one year at a college but I started losing interest in the program so I switched. I'm going into my third year here in September. Right now I'm on summer vacation, or as I like to call it, I'm in limbo right now. Summer vacation doesn't sound right for college students for some reason.


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## Starless Sneetch (Apr 24, 2012)

I've been taking classes in college since high school, so right now I've been "in college" for 6 years.


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## odd_one_out (Aug 22, 2006)

carambola said:


> And yet right now it looks like I'm going to die without ever finishing a Bachelor's degree.


What do you need to do to finish?


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## sansd (Mar 22, 2006)

odd_one_out said:


> What do you need to do to finish?


I have Incomplete grades in the two courses I would need to finish. I owe term papers for both of them. One of these I can still submit, pretty much any time, as long as I don't take classes as a regular student at the university again and the professor is still willing to accept it. The other paper it turns out I would have needed to submit today (I wasn't sure of this until today), although it _might_ be possible that the grade can still be changed within the next week. If I can't get the I grade changed, I'll have to do something else. It may or may not be possible to do something that wouldn't require another paper.

It's not much, but I've had a very long time to do these papers, I took several other Incompletes before which I allowed to lapse, and before I started taking Incompletes I dropped my required classes repeatedly for primarily paper-related reasons. I was as close to finishing six years ago as I am now, and if anything I feel less capable of working toward it. I don't want anything to do with the material because there's so much negativity associated with it.


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## alte (Sep 4, 2010)

4.5 for undergrad. I took summer quarters too, assuming I hadn't, it would have taken longer, perhaps 5 years.


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## odd_one_out (Aug 22, 2006)

carambola said:


> I have Incomplete grades in the two courses I would need to finish. I owe term papers for both of them. One of these I can still submit, pretty much any time, as long as I don't take classes as a regular student at the university again and the professor is still willing to accept it. The other paper it turns out I would have needed to submit today (I wasn't sure of this until today), although it _might_ be possible that the grade can still be changed within the next week. If I can't get the I grade changed, I'll have to do something else. It may or may not be possible to do something that wouldn't require another paper.
> 
> It's not much, but I've had a very long time to do these papers, I took several other Incompletes before which I allowed to lapse, and before I started taking Incompletes I dropped my required classes repeatedly for primarily paper-related reasons. I was as close to finishing six years ago as I am now.


Is it mostly procrastination? If so, is it related to anxiety and trouble with organisation and execution, and no matter what, you can't make yourself do the work?

In my courses there were periods of months where I could do virtually nothing, as though a force was operating against it. I'd get completely stuck. The inertia means it takes me months to get going and is impossible before then. I began by telling myself to write only one sentence of a paper and nothing more. That way I'd get started. However before doing all that I'd have to figure out how to nudge my mind out of its blank state to figure out how to open the necessary files and books and have them to hand. Just doing that would take great effort, but the miniscule, non-pressured steps start adding up and affect the inertia. I wonder if any of this happens to you.


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## sansd (Mar 22, 2006)

odd_one_out said:


> Is it mostly procrastination? If so, is it related to anxiety and trouble with organisation and execution, and no matter what, you can't make yourself do the work?


Procrastination is a very large part, although I also run into problems even when I manage to get started (which then leads back to procrastination). Yes to the rest.



> In my courses there were periods of months where I could do virtually nothing, as though a force was operating against it. I'd get completely stuck. The inertia means it takes me months to get going and is impossible before then. I began by telling myself to write only one sentence of a paper and nothing more. That way I'd get started. However before doing all that I'd have to figure out how to nudge my mind out of its blank state to figure out how to open the necessary files and books and have them to hand. Just doing that would take great effort, but the miniscule, non-pressured steps start adding up and affect the inertia. I wonder if any of this happens to you.


Yes, it does. I've been trying to do things like that recently, with this paper as well as other tasks that feel similarly barriered on a smaller scale. I'll focus on just trying to get relevant materials together as a first step, and then look for some next relatively simple, clearly-defined step I can take to help me along, like just identifying information I need to include. I'll still get hung up and stop before I get very far (because I'm frustrated with how things are coming out or it's not clear what I should do, for example).


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## odd_one_out (Aug 22, 2006)

I've finished university. I was there for 3 degrees, requiring extensions for disability, and it added up to about a decade.



carambola said:


> I'll still get hung up and stop before I get very far (because I'm frustrated with how things are coming out or it's not clear what I should do, for example).


That's no wonder then, if the way to proceed isn't clear. A lot of those assignments pose open-ended questions and aren't clearly defined. I had someone informally ask all kinds of academic questions of me and I could research them and answer, then when asked a vaguely defined, open-ended question it threw me and I never did get a grip on it. I'm sure if I'd put in extra work ideas would've come to me. However it would've taken a ton of extra work compared to the clearly defined questions.

I also want to do a good, well researched job, being somewhat a perfectionist, which gets overwhelming if you're not interested in the topic.

Do you have an example of an assignment where it wasn't clear what to do?


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## Glacial (Jun 16, 2010)

I think it took me almost three years to get an associates degree.


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## AllToAll (Jul 6, 2011)

Three years.

I took a course in spring 2009 and kept studying until fall 2010 when I had to take a gap semester due to financial reasons. I'm finally graduating in May 2013.


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## Marooned (Feb 20, 2004)

I left college after completing about three years' worth of classes. Anxiety got the better of me at the time and would make returning now seem like a Sisyphean undertaking if it were something I desired to do. My aspirations, values, and attitudes have changed considerably since my days as a student and are now at variance with the objectives of the institutions open to me, as well as with the expectations of most of the students who attend them. I'm not after prestige, wealth, career, grades, or credentials, and I see no compelling reason to subject myself to an environment where these things are paramount. For my purposes and with my limitations, the public library has and will hopefully continue to serve me well. 

I like to think that the time I did spend in the classroom prepared me for a life of learning and so it just fulfilled its mission a little early. In reality, it was a rather mediocre experience in which I feel I learned very little despite all of the silly indicators telling me otherwise. It could have just been the schools I attended, but one look at the state of the world's affairs is sufficient to see that academia has been failing us in some crucial respect. Our schools impart the knowledge needed to meet all of our misguided notions of success, but what they don't do is set their students on the path to wisdom, essential if the world is to become a better place for all. They teach all of the branches but, as Henry David Thoreau once quipped, "none of the roots." My only regret has been not grappling with this anxiety soon after leaving, allowing it grow into the festering wound it's now become.


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## A Man (May 15, 2012)

I've been in college about 8 years on and off. If I subtract the semesters when I wasn't enrolled, then I guess like 5 or 6 years. I don't feel like doing the math; it's too depressing.


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## Genetic Garbage (May 7, 2011)

3 years so far but at my current pace I can see myself going to university for the rest of my life.


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## DontDoSadness (Jan 12, 2011)

3 years going on 4.


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## Aphexfan (Jan 12, 2011)

4 going on 5! ><


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