University delay… A problem or a personal choice?

Abstract

This work was developed within the framework of the Workshop Level VI: “Research Practice” of the fourth year of the Bachelor's degree in Education of the National University of San Luis (San Luis, Argentina). The topic of study was university delay, with special interest in how students of Education Sciences experience their delay in completing their university studies. In this work, the term “delay” refers to those students who do not finish their university programs in the time established by the curriculum due to several difficulties. However, this delay, according to the interviewees, can be experienced in two totally different ways: as a problem and as a personal choice. As a problem, there are certain difficulties that seem to affect students by preventing them from completing their university programs in the stipulated time, such as work, family and correlative subjects among other issues that prevent their completion and cause frustration. However, when students decide to delay the completion of their studies, they do so to take further ownership of the subject contents, to reflect more on the meaning they wanted to give to their future training or simply to make other choices that had nothing to do with their studies.