A BA in Three Years

The Boston Globe featured Wesleyan’s three-year degree option, which allows students to get a jump start on graduate school or a career while saving 20 percent off their tuition bill. The option is not right for everyone, and requires students to take on heavy workloads, and perhaps give up certain opportunities like study abroad.

The Globe interviewed students pursuing the three-year degree, including Victoria Ramos ’15, who is premed and majoring in neuroscience and behavior.

At the beginning, she was simply driven. Then she realized how much money she could save for herself and her parents. With financial aid, her family is paying $22,000 this year. She also went to one summer session, then spent the rest of the season working at her parents’ grocery store.

Last semester was “really rough,” she said, because of a tough organic chemistry class. Still, she is in a Latin dance troupe and two other student groups, earning a B+ average, and says she still has time for her friends.

Her secret: six hours of sleep is enough, she says. And when she does need rest, she ignores her friends’ text messages.

If she had time, Ramos would have liked to run track and study abroad in France. But ultimately, she doesn’t feel deprived.

“In the time I’ve spent here I’ve really enjoyed everything I’ve done,” she said, “and gotten a good breadth of things I wanted to do, a taste of everything.”

Time also featured Wesleyan’s three-year option.