How to earn a Bachelors degree in 2 years.

Intro

This December, I will be graduating from the University of California, Berkeley at the age of 18, continuing onto the MS Computer Science program at Georgia Tech as one of the youngest ever matriculated students in the program. I am often asked how and why I was able to graduate so early, and what my goals were at the time. I hope this post will clarify my personal goals and motivations, as well as how to adopt a similar educational plan for those seeking to graduate early.

Motivations

When I was 16, I wanted to be financially independent from my parents and my legal guardian at the time, and I also wanted to be able to contribute to family finances and to support people I cared about when it mattered. One of the steps towards achieving this goal was a college degree - I wanted to work in tech and I realized that most engineers had degrees, or at least went to a reputable institution and later dropped out aftering securing an adequate full-time offer. I had previously competed in programming competitions, but otherwise had no significant background in mathematics, with my very first course in community college being an introduction to Calculus.

Timeline

My goal was to simultaneously advance my education and become more self-sufficient. I concluded that attending community college in California was the best choice for me at the time, as it would give me the flexibility to pick up internships and the classes I took could eventually transfer towards degree in the University of California system.

January 2022: I enrolled at De Anza College part-time through a dual enrollment program at my high school, and took the maximum units allowed (8 per quarter)

March 2023: I passed the California High School Proficiency Exam (CHSPE), a California version of the GED that enables students to leave high school and attend community college full-time.

June 2023: I left high school and took 15 units over the Summer after my unit cap was removed. I would overload on units in this and every future term.

August 2023: I enrolled as a visiting student at SF State and CSU East Bay to take upper-division classes. Typically, community colleges only offer lower-divion (1st and 2nd year) classes. However, you can take upper-division (3rd and 4th year) or graduate classes at schools in the CSU system through the Open-University program, or through cross-enrollment programs at community college, transferring the credit to your eventual degree-granting institution after matriculating. This is risky, as your transfer institution may not accept the units, or may not grant equivalency for those classes to your major requirements. I minimized the risk by emailing the Berkeley Math Department in advance and obtaining a confirmation of equivalency before taking upper division and graduate classes outside the university.

January 2024: I enrolled as a visiting student at UC Berkeley, taking Honors Introduction to Complex Analysis (Math H185), and also took Measure Theory (a graduate class) at SF State.

April 2024: I was accepted to Berkeley, and committed!

June 2024: I transferred to Berkeley and took two classes over the Summer, completing 6/8 upper division major requirements before my intended first semester.

August 2024: I took 18 units of classes at Berkeley and 2 graduate classes, ending the semester with 114 units

December 2024: I took 6 units of Winter Intersession classes at community college to reach 120 units.

January 2025: I completed my winter intersession classes and was awarded my degree. I also transferred credit for the two grad courses I took at Berkeley to my MS at Georgia Tech.

In summary, I graduated in 2 years, spending my first semester in college as a part-time student. I was only a matriculated student at Berkeley for about eight months, but had been involved in student organizations for nearly a year due to starting as a visiting student in Spring 2024. As a community college student, your chances of getting into a UC school are much higher. Even if I was rejected from the school I wished to attend (Berkeley), the upper division courses I took would have transferred to any UC school I committed to, as I had chosen classes that would have equivalent major requirement courses for the majors I applied for.

Common Questions

Should I graduate early?

• The primary benefit of graduating early is being able to enter the workforce earlier while paying less in tuition. You’ll be able to start a full-time job earlier if you graduate early. and that gives you time to progress in your career, earning money along the way. You’ll also be more valuable to future hiring managers compared to just staying extra semesters in school, as you will have full-time work experience, which is generally more valuable than internships. For example, suppose you need to pay 70,000 a year to attend university. If you graduated in three years rather than four, and started a new grad job paying 140,000, you stand to gain more than 210,000 by graduating a year earlier. However, you would be betting on your ability to obtain a satisfactory full-time offer while completing this hypothetical early-graduation plan.

Should I leave to high school to attend community college?

• The primary benefit of attending community college is paying less in tuition, and gaining much more flexibility. Acceptance rates into the UC system for California Community College transfers are much higher than their freshman equivalents. For example, the Berkeley math department accepted around 51% of transfer applicants for the Applied Math major in 2023, compared to the 11% overall acceptance rate for freshman admits to Berkeley. This means transfer students can focus on work that is relevant and meaningful for their careers or fields of interest, rather than sinking lots of time on extracurriculars that may significantly improve their odds of admissions but don’t necessarily improve their career outlook. I was able to take hard classes that really challenged me and simultaneously work at a software internship because I didn’t have to worry about extracurricular committments, clubs, and other matters that traditional high school students have to commit to.
• If you are a freshman or sophomore, attending community college is a great option as you’d normally never have access to college-credit courses besides AP coursework, which frankly max out at a low level (there is no AP Linear Algebra, Differential Equations, etc.) If you are a Junior or Senior, and you believe you’d be happy attending a school in your state or province, you can also take the GED or an equivalent and attend community college full-time. If you are looking into private schools or out of state schools, I’d recommend taking a reduced courseload in high school and taking as many community college classes relevant to your intended major as possible with the intent of transfering those credits to fulfill requirements. Even if your classes don’t end up transferring, it looks better on the transcript anyways.

I want to continue my education after undergrad.

• If your goal is graduate school, medical school, or anything similar, you need to be very careful to ensure a high GPA even when taking on the heavy courseloads required for early graduation. If you do decide to graduate early, make sure your grades don’t slip as a result. I personally never had to worry about this issue, as my goal was always to become a software engineer. My graduate program (Georgia Tech OMSCS) is not very competitive in admissions, so I was not too concerned with maintaining a certain GPA and always strived to take the hardest/most difficult class that I could access.

How do I create an educational plan where I can graduate in two years?

• Overload on units. Be proactive in organizing appointments with advisors, and triple check everything. Even if an advisor or counselor tells you that some part of your educational plan is not possible, I would highly recommend checking in with at least one more person, as I have on multiple occasions been told conflicting information about my educational plan that would have otherwise jeapordized it. Lastly, be resourceful and always be on the lookout for programs in your or nearby schools you can take advantage of. Don’t be afraid to do push back when you’re told “no” to certain things by advisors or HR people, and don’t be afraid to do busywork to get what you want like collect signatures on long forms. It might be a pain, but ultimately, it’s a part of the process and will get you what you want.