USF starts up 3-year-degree program

Posted Aug 23, 2011 by Lindsay Peterson

Updated Aug 23, 2011 at 12:35 PM

It seems a little strange to talk about getting students through USF in three years when the university struggles to get them through in four.

Just a little over half graduate in six.

These late graduators are typical students, like Natalie Stoll, who started out in pre-nursing but didn’t realize it wasn’t what she wanted to do until she got into it. She switched to business but has to stay at USF an extra year to get the credits she needs.

USF’s new three-year-degree program is starting out with 24 students - out of nearly 48,000 who began classes at USF yesterday.

They’re smart and committed, but the thing that will make or break their success is how well they knew what they wanted from college when they were just 15 or 16.

They have to come into the program with at least 18 AP or dual enrollment credits that will apply to their chosen major, and they have to stick with that major until they finish.

Seems like a high bar, but USF put its feelers out across the country for the right candidates for this program, called Provost’s Scholars.

The response showed Stuart Silverman, the Honors College dean who is running the program, that there are plenty of smart, driven kids out there who have a vision of what they want to do. Enough to possibly double the number of students starting in the program next year.

That’s good to know, because the college grads of the future will have some heavy lifting to do to deal with the problems we’ve created. We’re sort of counting on these super-smart students to figure out how to fix everything.