Deadlines for spring 2016 registration begin Monday, Nov. 9, but senior Anna Denke will not be requesting courses for next semester. Like a handful of other students, Denke will be completing her credits this December and will be graduating a semester early.
DePauw’s institutional research online shows that during the 2014-2015 academic year 13 students graduated early, nine seniors graduated in December and four juniors graduated in May. DePauw students often decide to graduate early due to financial reasons or because they decide to study abroad during their junior or senior year.
Denke was primarily influenced to graduate early due to financial reasons. Denke said the decision was a difficult one to make but after she conducted more research about the possibility she discovered moving out West sooner would be better for her than staying at DePauw for another semester.
“I am going to miss my friends and the campus a lot this spring but I will be back in April and May to be with everyone and graduate with the rest of my class,” said Denke.
Senior Maddie Hawk initially thought about completing her undergraduate degree a semester early in the interest of financial reasons but was discouraged by her advisor to graduate early.
“Part of the reason my advisor discouraged [graduating early] was because it would’ve made going abroad more difficult,” said Hawk, “and that was a deal breaker for me.”
Hawk not only would have had difficulty transferring credits earned from her study abroad experience but she would have had to petition for her senior seminar class.
DePauw University requires that students complete thirty-one courses for students earning Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Bachelor of Music (B.M.) and Bachelor of Musical Arts (B.M.A.) degrees. The Bachelor of Music Education (B.M.E.) degree requires at least 33 courses.
Out of these courses, students in the College of Liberal Arts must demonstrate competence in writing (W), quantitative reasoning (Q) and oral communication skills (S). Students in the School of Music B.M., B.M.A. and B.M.E. degree programs complete W and S certification.
Two new requirements are being added to the curriculum: Power, Privilege, and Diversity and the International Experience Requirement. However this addition does not affect current enrolled students.
Senior Zack Baker will be graduating in May with his classmates including Denke; however, he will take his second Extended Studies course at Ghost Ranch this January. Students are expected to complete two Extended Studies (ES) courses during their time at DePauw.
“I decided that, since I was finished with my major, English Literature, and my minor, Political Science, as well as all of my distribution requirements, it would make more sense to take an internship for the last three academic credits that I needed to graduate,” said Baker.
Baker has been working for a tech company, DoubleMap Inc. based in Indianapolis since sophomore year. Next semester he will be commuting from DePauw to their offices four days a week
“I will be making money, building my resume/experience even further and I’m not going to be stuck in freshman level classes,” said Baker.
Chair of Faculty, Bridget Gourley explained that after the Winter Term program switched to Extended studies, updating graduation requirements was discussed.
“Some faculty feel that our graduation requirements aren't as strong as other good schools and so have proposed the idea to strengthen the DePauw degree,” said Gourley.
However, the faculty on the Extended Studies committee thought the subject was premature and the discussion wasn’t opened up to the full faculty.
According to junior student representative, Perrin Duncan, the Curricular Policy and Planning Committee has not had any recent conversations about changing graduation requirements. However, the Dean of Academic Affairs Dave Berque believes the topic will be open for discussion in the near future.
“I do think it is possible that the committee will discuss this topic sometime during the academic year as it is a topic that comes up periodically,” said Berque.