I saw this article and was thinking about myself. I have been in college for 4 years with no degree to show for it. I go to community college and I’ve completed 70 units. At community college you need 60 units for an A.A. degree and you need to take the required courses. I need one more Math class and that degree is mine! I sometimes feel like I’ll become this student if I decide to attend a university to complete a Bachelor’s degree. The reason why my degree took so long was that I sometimes took 1 or 2 classes a semester, skip a full semester (this happened once), or I would get crazy and take 18 units in one semester. I was never consistent with a course load from semester to semester. Have any Dopers taken a long time to finish college? What were your reasons?
Well, I know a guy who is also in his 12th or 13th year of college, but he has a BS, and MS, and most of a PhD to show for it.
A family friend just earned her BA in June after nine years. I have no idea what she was doing, but she was apparently a full-time student for the whole time. She received her degree at the same time her three-years-younger sister received her MA.
I believe I should be awarded a huge research grant to study this phenomenon over the next 10-20 years.
Kegger at my house!
What?! 
Oh, fine! (get’s dressed and shuffles off to work…)
:mad:
I would love to be an eternal student … just keep getting batchelor level degrees in whatever interests me=)
Although I confess to wanting to see if Albertus Magnus University [a subsidiary of Yale] has the classic quadrivium and trivium, and follow it up with a ceramic engineering bit so I coud claim to have learned Alchemy from Albuertus Magnis in the Society for Creative Anachronism … =)
When I started grad school I heard about a guy who spent seven years getting his Ph.D.
“If I did that,” I told another student, “I’d kill myself.”
And damned if I didn’t. It ultimately took me an ungodly ten years in grad school to get it, but that included going to another University and starting over, because I had a falling-out with my advisor. So it ended up a 14-year stint. At the end of it, though, I had three degrees.
I know some people who started the same time as me and still don’t have their doctorates. But they’re still trying for them, and are active. So the record’s quite a big longer than 12 years (although they have intermediate degrees – just not the Ph.D.s)
I only took a mere five and a half. During the course of those years I had 8 different majors declared. I work in none of them now. I had two minors, and if I would have taken Introduction to Business (101) I could have had a third.
There was an article in GQ a few months ago about some guy who was in college for like 12 years or more. He was like 31. I was going to write an angry letter to the editor because they kept comparing him to Old School. The guys from Old School manage to continue their party life while maintaining full-time jobs. This guy is a mere Van Wilder.
Can’t blame him though. I ended up staying an extra semester and it was well worth it. We had one guy in my fraternity who was like a senior when I pledged as a sophomore. I stopped by the old house one time maybe about 5 years after I graduated. One of the guys in the house is like “…hmmm…there’s probably not anyone left from when you were in the house…OH WAIT! Eric’s still here!”
The guy had been living in the fraternity as a ‘house advisor’ for like 6 years. I don’t think he even went to school!
Fat Albert University…hee hee 
I have over 250 undergraduate hours. I have a B.S. in biology/chemistry and a B.A. in computer science. I completed the requirements for a major in psychology and minors in math and journalism. I probably spent 12 years in college, although most of that time I was also working full time.
If I could afford it, I’d quit work today and go to law school. I’d also like to take classes in astronomy, geology, more math, music, art, and a few other things.
I like going to school, but I hate going to school and working full time.
Yeeeeeeeeeesh.
(Says the girl who’s planning out graduate school, PhD theses, and professorship positions… :rolleyes:)
Well, if he works full-time to cover his own tuition, why not?
Just out of curiosity, what do you do for a living? I only ask because I am halfway through a BS in biochemistry and am switching my degree to computer science (BSIT), I have enough credits to minor in chemistry, which my advisor thought it was odd when I mentioned I would like a minor in chemistry, but I don’t have enough to dual major. (BTW, this is my second time I switched my degree- Went from Pre-pharmacy to Biochemistry and have just recently decided to switch again, but I will be able to graduate in the same time- total years- 5)
I knew a perpetual student when I was at university in Saskatoon. He’d register and buy his books, go back to the farm and help his mother with the harvest, and come back to get all A’s and B’s in a full load of courses. In the spring he’d go help with seeding and get the same sort of grades. He made sure not to get enough credits in a subject for a minor so they could make him graduate. When I knew him he was down to Far Eastern Studies, and had painted his pickup bright orange with the Chinese characters for what he said was “ten-thousand-year-old wagon” on the door.
I took quite a few years for my BSc, but that includes several years dropped out followed by a schedule like the OP’s. I’d go back to school forever myself if I had the money.
I knew of a few people at Indiana who started out with one major and switched halfway to another one, adding several semesters to their time. Myself, I have accumulated 7 years for a BA and a BS, and now will add another three to four for an MS in Biochemistry (one class at a time). OTOH, there were a small group of people who could not deal with the outside world, so they would extend their stay in the dorms with advanced degrees and changes of major. They were sad, and nearly all lived in one dorm on the edge of campus. The university was going to crack down on them about the time we left town, but I don’t know what happened. I do remember some discussion that while they were intelligent, they were marginally capable of taking care of themselves for whatever reason.
Vlad/Igor
After high school, I spent 3 years at a community college getting an AA degree (1 year longer than normal).
Then I transferred to a UC school ad spent 3 years there finishing a BA (1 year longer than average).
Now I’m in my first semester of grad school working on an MA.
Heres hoping.
I go to school with a guy who’s been here for ten years. He got BAs in Communications and English and is now working on his MS. He just can’t quite finish his thesis.
Robin
Graduated high school in 1973.
Graduated college in 1986.
Do the math.
Of course, that also includes: 10 colleges, 9 majors, and a 7 year period in the middle where I just took the odd class each semester because I like the social scene and picking up college girls.
I have a cousin who’s 34 now and this is her first year not going to college. That’s sixteen years worth, at four different colleges. All BA’s though, except for an MA in what I think is Art History. Her mother, who vowed to get her daughters the education she was never offered, went along with it until last year. Now, she’s off volunteering for the Peace Corp. Of course, whenever someone makes a comment about how my older sister’s taking five years, she just mentions Ramona and everyone goes quiet.
My ex took seven years to graduate with a B.A. He transferred after his second year at another college though, and lost almost all his credits, so it’s somewhat defensible.
Graduated high school: 1989.
Graduated college with a bachelor’s degree: 2000.
Talk about embarrassing.
I’m planning on going back to school full-time in January, this time just auditing courses for the skills.
I may take forever to complete the coursework, but I’ll damned if I’m getting tens of thousands further in student loan debt again.