From the Editors: The super senior generation

Jordan Batchelor, News Editor

Freshman year I would have scoffed at the idea of not graduating within four years. I assumed those who couldn’t get their bachelor’s degree by their senior year had failed, skipped and slacked off in classes. Unless you were double majoring or had some extenuating circumstance, I would roll my eyes at the Van Wilder-esque super senior.

That was freshman year. It has been three years since then, and now I find myself in the very situation I held contempt for.

I just entered my first semester as a senior, and when many kids will have their degree a year from now, I will be yet another statistic in the ever-growing demographic of fifth year—and sometimes sixth and seventh year—undergraduates. It seems to me that somewhere in the last decade, the expectations have changed. Getting your bachelor’s degree is no longer enough. Or, if a bachelor’s degree is all you can muster, you better choose the right major with the right post-graduation employment rate and one that ranks high on top ten lists of Most Wanted Major. You  better rethink that archaeology degree, Kevin.

If Kevin was crazy enough to continue with archaeology—or English, history, philosophy, etc.—then Kevin better consider going to graduate school. And while he’s at it, he better consider following through with his PhD. For if Kevin doesn’t do this, he will hold a mere bachelor’s degree worth four years of debt. Then Kevin better start “thinking critically” about how to explain to an employer how Music Appreciation 102 has made him a more well rounded person.

But let’s pull back the reins for a minute. Perhaps the expectations of college students have grown a bit and maybe there’s some truth to certain majors being preferred over others, but this is nothing new. Being an English major with a double minor in professional writing and philosophy, I have been scoffed at a number of times for my decisions. And over the years, I’ve met people from almost all of the fields that UW-La Crosse has to offer—some very intelligent, others still trying to prioritize whether Thursday or Friday is the appropriate night to get trashed. But either way, rarely has the case been that the field a person chooses has shaped them, but rather it is the individual person who shapes that field. It is up to the individual to determine how they are represented, how they come across in an interview and how long they take to figure it all out.

Above all, our tastes change over the four or five years we students are completing our bachelor’s degree. I began with meteorology, switched to English, added philosophy and learned that I love a whole lot of different stuff along the way. But when I finally gave up writing amateur-hour essays about how the professions should view this degree, or why that degree is overrated, I could slow down and focus on what’s important for all students: following what suits you. If the super senior generation needs more time to quell the expectations and decide what’s best for our future, take that extra year. I’m willing to bet it’ll make everyone happier than choosing what’s high up on that top ten list of important majors.