In the spring of 2015 I was 14 years old, a scared freshmen that didn’t like high school all that much, I dropped out to enroll in classes at Sinclair.
Up until high school I had been homeschooled by my parents, and it took all of three months for me to realize public schooling was not my thing. But, the biggest lesson I took away from homeschooling was that my education was mine to define.
If I was going to drop out I needed a plan to finish high school that would work for me, and that’s when I found College Credit Plus (CCP). This sounded like a dream to me; one semester of a college course counts for a whole year of high school. Which meant if I dropped out of high school and went back to homeschooling, I could enroll in classes at Sinclair and graduate from high school with an associates degree.
Ultimately what made my decision was the atmosphere. In my three months of high school all I managed to learn was I was bad at math, and freshmen are mean to shy, smart kids. I felt it was impossible to learn. Deadlines were too close, homework seemed like its sole purpose was to make me cry, and very few of my fellow students actually wanted to learn like I did. Worst of all, the teachers didn’t trust me that I wanted to learn.
All I could think everyday was “as soon as I graduate, I’m just gonna do this crap again.” While many of my friends and people I knew did well, I knew it wasn’t for me.
Sinclair was completely different. I’ll always remember my first class, English composition 1101, sure it was hard and the deadlines were still rough, but I knew what I was doing was counting towards something. Most of the other students in my class were also there because they wanted to be, and my teachers treated me with respect, and knew I was there to learn.
The CCP program allowed me to get ahead, find my true calling as a writer, and begin gaining experience in my career field at the Clarion.
The CCP program is a way for students grades 7-12 to take college courses and earn credit while they are still in high school, but it’s so much more than that. It’s a way to build experiences and relationships that will last a lifetime, and for me, CCP was a way to structure my education my way.
Cerridwyn Kuykendall
Associate Editor