Dual enrollment, or taking extra college classes, is beneficial in many ways. You can get the experience of having a college workload, obtain some college credits, and put it on your college applications to make them look impressive. 

Unfortunately, high schools don’t always offer all the classes that some students want to learn from.

“I wanted to take extra courses in the first place because I think that some college courses provide an education that isn’t typically taught through high school curriculum,” junior April Le said. 

Le takes classes as a part of the SVCTE program. SVCTE is a science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM) program that offers 23 courses to high school students, for free. Every day during our first and second periods

Le gets on a bus and goes to Mission college for her medical science and health careers class. Her class is the D and G of UC Admissions: A-G requirements. 

One thing that comes with a college class is the amount of work there is to do. This may be hard for some students but not for Le!

“[It’s] just the same with any AP course or honors course. You learn how to manage the extra work and dedicate time to studying for that class,’ Le said. 

Taking extra classes isn’t for everyone though. Some people already have a lot on their plate or they may not be able to handle everything that comes with an extra college course. And others may have sports or other extracurricular activities. 

“You don’t want to stretch yourself too thin, right? You want to still be able to enjoy high school,” academic counselor Judy Pataky-Hannon said. 

As we all know, college admissions is a very competitive process. The more students that apply for college, the lower the chance you will have of getting accepted. This pushes many students to go above and beyond in their social, personal, and academic lives because they will be able to tell admissions what they’ve been up to on their applications. 

“It makes your transcript look a little more appealing, [it] makes it look like you worked a little bit harder than the person you’re competing with to get into that school,” academic counselor Angel Winn said.  

For one, you get hands-on learning and a more in-depth curriculum, but it’s also a way for you to save money. When you take college classes you get college credits that can go towards your future degree which means that you can complete some of your college education earlier and possibly even graduate early. This saves you from having to spend as much money on college.

“You can get credits for college so that’s good for saving money and just getting some credits while you’re still in high school,” Le said. 

Even though time management and extra studying seem like a lot, having hands-on experience in class makes it worth it for Le. 

“I think in addition to normal classroom learning, like taking notes in lectures, hands-on [activities] also help drill the concepts into your mind,” Le said. 

Overall, if you are looking for a hands-on learning experience while still in high school and want to earn some college credits, dual enrollment is for you!