What To Do If You Regret Doing Two Degrees At Once From Different Universities
The microwave beeped for the third time at 2:17 a.m. I’d forgotten my coffee again, staring at two open browser tabs: one for the state university’s online sociology portal, and one for the private art school’s semester project submission page. My 6-year-old was curled up on the couch next to me, leftover mac and cheese crumbs on her unicorn pajamas, after I’d missed her bedtime story to cram for a midterm I’d completely forgotten about. That’s when it hit me, clear as the crumbs on the couch cushion: I regret this. I regret signing up for two degrees at the same time from two different schools.
I’m 28, going back to school after taking a 10-year break to work and start my family. I started an art degree right out of high school, but dropped out with two years left to work full-time as a graphic designer. When I decided I wanted to switch careers to become a child and family social worker, I faced a choice: finish the art degree first, then do the social work degree, which would take four years total, or squeeze both in at the same time to graduate in 18 months. The social work program was at the local state university, which was cheaper and fit my part-time work schedule, and the art school let me finish my remaining credits online. I’d seen so many people online talk about stacking credentials to get ahead faster, so I went for it.
At first, it felt manageable. I worked 20 hours a week, did a couple classes a week at each school, thought I had the schedule down. But the small stuff started piling up fast. The art school runs on a quarter system, the state university on semesters. Deadlines overlapped that no one warned me about. One week I had a 10-page art history research paper, a social work midterm, and a final studio project all due in five days. I missed my daughter’s first soccer game of the season because I had to drive 45 minutes to the art school’s campus for an in-person proctored exam. I kept all my deadlines on each school’s individual portal, so I didn’t see the overlap until three days before everything was due. I ended up pulling three all-nighters in a row, and my work for both assignments was worse than it would have been if I’d only had one to focus on.
I’ve spent the last three months feeling like a failure. I see people my age finishing double programs online, I think about the extra tuition I’m paying, and I can’t imagine quitting now. When I finally called my old academic advisor to vent, she didn’t tell me to just push through or to quit entirely. She asked me questions that made me break down the problem into small, manageable pieces instead of seeing it as all or nothing.
What I’ve learned since then, that I want to share with other students or parents of students considering this path, is that doing two degrees from two different schools isn’t the same as doing a dual degree at one university. Most schools have pre-planned dual degree programs that map out overlapping credits and schedule courses so deadlines don’t clash. When you’re doing two separate degrees at two different schools, all that coordination is on you, and most people don’t account for the extra administrative work that comes with switching between two systems, two sets of rules, and two different credit structures.
If you’re already in this spot, regretting your choice and looking for a way forward, there are small concrete steps that work better than pushing through until you burn out. First, pull every single deadline for the rest of the semester from both schools and put them on one single calendar, color-coded by school. I do this on my phone’s calendar now, and I add an extra two-hour buffer to every big assignment. Before I did this, I was checking two portals every single day, and I still missed overlapping deadlines. This one 30-minute task cut my weekly stress by more than half.
Second, call the registrar’s office at both schools and ask about leave of absence policies. Most schools will let you step back for one or two semesters without losing your spot or the credits you’ve already earned. I assumed that if I paused one degree, I’d have to reapply and lose all the money I’d already paid, but that wasn’t the case. I called my art school last week, and they let me push my remaining three classes back to start next fall, no extra fees, no reapplication needed. That means I can focus only on my social work degree this spring, graduate on time for that, and pick up the art degree when I’m done. I’m not dropping it, I’m just not forcing myself to do both at once.
If you’re a parent reading this, and your kid is considering doing two degrees from different schools, the best thing you can do is sit down with them and do the deadline calendar exercise before they sign up. Don’t just tell them it’s too hard—ask them to map out what their semester would actually look like, and calculate how many hours a week they’d have left for work, sleep, and other responsibilities. Most people underestimate how much extra time the administrative work between two schools takes.
This weekend, I went to my daughter’s soccer game, and I left my laptop at home. I didn’t check my email once the whole time. I brought orange slices, cheered when she kicked the ball (even when she kicked it the wrong way), and drove home for ice cream after. It’s the first free Saturday I’ve had in a year. I still feel a little guilty about pausing the art degree. I don’t know for sure if I’ll go back next fall, or if I’ll decide it makes more sense to finish it a couple credits at a time over two more years. There’s no neat ending here, no big reward for making it work against all odds. But I’m sleeping more, I’m showing up for my kid, and I’m actually doing better work in my social work classes now that I’m not stretched thin. That’s enough for right now.
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