It’s the start of a brand new semester! Christmas break is over and all of the college students are anticipating the crunch of new work loads and readying themselves for even more late nights. I myself already dread the thought of several of my junior level courses while I am psyched about many others. To think that just last semester I began my adventure here at Belmont.. Actually I’m a transfer student having carried in well over 60 credits and an Associate of Arts degree.. This makes me a Junior here academically (for those who were wondering). Now go ahead and ask me which dorm I am living in here on campus.… a Freshman dorm?? Why yes! …Want to know my secret?
…I’m only 18!
So how is it an 18 year old manages to already be a junior in college? Well you might have heard of a program referred to as Post-Secondary Educational Options (PSEO) or dual-enrollment. However you call it, this growing state-sponsored program gives you a head start on college education… in high school. Every state and school district works differently, but the benefits of starting college 1, 2, or even 3 years early are innumerable.
I began as a junior in high school at my local community college as did many of my other classmates and friends from other local schools. For us it was either go to the college with the rest of your classmates or take the boring classes back at the high school. But let me explain some of the significances of PSEO. Our state paid completely for our education at the college, which included tuition and books. So basically I got 2 years of college for FREE in HIGH SCHOOL!!! Not to mention the emotional growth I experienced was incredible. At the college level the student learns that he/she is responsible for his or her own education and only he/she has the power to make it work. This is a lesson we all learned as we could schedule classes around our own schedules and not simply our schedules around our classes. To have this freedom while in high school gives the student a blunt look at life as an adult. Sometimes classes are even offered at the student’s high school. I was fortunate to have several dual-enrollment courses at my high school that in turn also counted toward my education at the college as well. This gives students the chance to not only dive into the college atmosphere but to still keep a taste of those final high school years as well. However, by senior year… I never even thought to consider myself a high school student. After being so engrossed in the college atmosphere I was a college student, not high school. To say that a level of maturity and growth is gained would not be cutting it close to describing the emotional growth.
However, with the freedom of college I also had to learn responsibility fast. The work load is a full step up from simple high school work and demanded time and dedication that I was not quite used to. If we did not pass our classes for the quarter then the state would not fund our education, and we were left to pay for the class ourselves. Even in high school, payments are not something you want to worry about. Thankfully academics were never really a huge issue for me, but there was always that fear of not passing a class. Commuting to the college was always enjoyable if you learned how to carpool. Gas was not cheap and we were responsible for getting to our classes. The other thing was we had to take courses that also apply to our required classes at the high school. Meaning if we students did not pass a general course at the college then we didn’t pass it at the high school level either.
I never said that taking the dual-enrollment path was necessarily easy… but who said college is easy? Was it worth it? Yes. The benefits far outweighed the negatives to such a great scale. Free college, gained life-long skills, a different level of maturity, friends, and excellent academics were just a few of the pieces I gained through Post-secondary. As I mentioned before… I also gained my Associate’s degree by the end of my two years in the PSEO program. In fact… I graduated from the college just 2 weeks after my high school graduation. But it was my college diploma that ended up meaning the most to me in the end because it was what i had worked for the most… And I ended up gaining far much more.
