You may think you're cruising toward graduation , but during your junior year in college, you may want to make a point to double check that everything is in order. You don't want any surprises — or setbacks — during your senior year!

My stepdaughter just wrapped up her junior year, and she recently had a scare with regard to her credits. It turned out that she was five credits short of graduating on-time. Fortunately she caught the problem early enough. She's able to do a correspondence course and some independent study over the summer to earn the credits, and she's still planning to don a cap and gown  next May!

How did this happen? Well, she had been working with a general advisor, rather than one specific to her major, and things just got miscalculated along the way.

The moral of the story: Don't leave your graduation date to chance. Double check all your credits early on, while you still have time to make any adjustments necessary.