A new semester is on the horizon. The majority of students prepare to relax and prepare for the next semester except for a select few students who will be receiving their diploma and heading out into the world due to having acquired enough credits to graduate. Extra credits can be acquired by attend­ing summer school, taking the first level of a world language through 7th & 8th grade, and taking higher level math courses (algebra 1 as an 8th grader, geometry as a 9th grad­er, algebra 2 as a 10th grader, col­lege algebra or pre calc as an 11th grader, etc.) There are also plenty of online credit options available during the course of your high school career.

When it comes to graduating early however, it takes an extra amount of effort to try to cover all 24 required credits in a shorter amount of time. Those who did will get an entire semester (and some a whole year) to themselves to start pursuing their dreams of success ahead of their peers.

There are many seniors across all three high school pursuing that coveted diploma early, and there are quite a few at Hickman. Dylan Shelton, who was a senior this year before completing his credits in October via online credit hours, said what it is like not having to go to school and what he plans to do with his spare time.

“I can focus on my job, and save my money for college,” he comments.

Brayden Rother, who is completing his high school tenure at the end of the semester, had said his future plans are still up in the air.

“It’s pretty scary honestly because I’m not entirely sure what I’m gon­na do other than college, but I’m also really excited to officially start my ‘adult life.’”

A lot of seniors will have acquired quite a few credits by the time their senior year arrives. Given summer school and online classes, many seniors will have anywhere from 20-23 (and for a select few all 24) credits with a whole year left. In Shelton’s case, he only had one credit left that he needed. When asked about how exactly he man­aged to get enough credits to grad­uate early he had this to say.

“To graduate early, I took extra credit classes throughout high­school and I also took online class­es to meet the minimum require­ments.”

As Shelton took the online credit route, Rother went the other main route, which was attending summer school consistently and taking care of a few credits that way.

“I was able to get all of my credits by just going to summer school every year honestly.”

Now you may be asking, what exactly do seniors do when they’ve graduated early? With all the extra time, some will get a jumpstart on college, some will work full time to save money, and others will simply take a quick break from it all.

When Shelton was asked about what he plans on doing with the extra semester, he had this to say: “I plan to continue working and focus on getting into Mizzou,” he says.

Rother had ideas parallel with Shel­ton’s, as he says he’s most looking forward to starting the next adven­ture in life: college.

“I’m most likely going to work during the extra semester and save up and get men­tally prepared for college!”

As we wrap things up, we leave the seniors with a note, or a paragraph, of advice. Stay safe, don’t eat yellow snow, don’t accept candy from random strangers, remember that alcohol is not one of the major food groups, remember the difference between your and you’re, ramen is cheap, uber is useful, don’t party college away but don’t college away the party and most importantly, if push comes to shove and you’ve only typed 486 of the 1000 words needed in your philosophy essay that’s due at 11:59, just change the font color to white and hold down a key until you meet your desired result. Goodbye seniors and good luck.