I walked across the stage two weeks ago today, graduation gown billowing and tassel smoking in the heat. President Fox shook my hand, lots of people I don’t know snapped photos, and I became one of those driven, successful people who graduate college in four years. Except that I haven’t graduated in four years.
My maroon diploma with its St. Lawrence crest reads “congratulations on your effort.” The semester I took off junior year, according to our Office of Institutional Research, throws me out of the federally-defined “cohort” of students who enrolled in fall 2008 and will graduate by this summer. My nonconsecutive eight semesters of undergrad is like a magic key to the 5-year graduation club.
