How My Dual Enrollment Experience Helped Me with My College Decision

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By Angela Brown

To put it briefly, I owe so much to the opportunity that I and many other junior and senior high school students in Union and nearby counties have of taking dual-enrollment classes at USC-Union. Dual enrollment is where students can earn college credits while they are still enrolled in high school. During my junior year at Union Christian Day School (Fall 2021), I started taking dual-enrollment classes at USC-Union. The two classes I enrolled in at that time were Spanish 101 and Biology 101, which included a lab.

A few of my friends were also beginning dual-enrollment classes, and we were extremely nervous at first. My first thought was that all these actual college students were going to judge us for anything and every-thing, but I found out very quickly that that was not the case. Nobody cared about what we were doing, and everyone was just minding their own business.
Teachers in high school also like to portray college professors as these scary individuals with mass amounts of untouchable power. I cannot count how many times I heard teachers say, “They won’t tolerate this in college.” I’m sure there are some truly awful college professors out there, but the majority of my instructors were very understanding, even more so than a lot of the teachers I had in high school. I also got the opportunity to meet a lot of nice people.

That is not to say that this experience was without challenges. Trying to balance both my high school schedule and my college schedule was difficult at times. Trying to complete all my assignments for both places took a lot of time. I was also playing volleyball in the Fall of both my junior and senior years of high school. There were many nights where I was up late trying to study or get other assignments done, and some tears were most definitely shed out of stress and frustration. I learned a lot about work ethic and time-management skills and finished high school with thirty-one hours of college credit.

Even with the hardships, I enjoyed my experience as a dual enrollment student at USC-Union so much that I wanted to continue here for my first year of college. I knew I wanted to stay close to home and having completed dual enrollment courses made me familiar with how USC-Union worked. I was extremely comfortable here, and it seemed like an obvious choice. I am still un-decided as far as my major is concerned, but my first year of being a full-time college student has been incredibly good. I have met even more nice people and have been able to see a lot of friends that I graduated with who also decided to stay here for freshman year. I like just being able to focus on strictly college and being able to pick classes and be in more control of my schedule has been very nice. I feel like I have more free time than I did in high school. Overall, I can confidently say that the opportunity to take dual-enrollment classes has been one of the biggest blessings in my life because it more than prepared me for what being a full-time student would be like.