Photo by Baim Hanif on Unsplash
Trekking to the End of My Rainbow By Jania Jones Editor
A
s I sit here, writing to all of you, I almost don’t believe myself. I can’t seem to come to terms with the fact that I did it. Just beyond the horizon (pun intended) I can see a diploma with my name on it, front and center.
sessions in office hours, and an impressive amount of tears, my family and I decided it might be best to withdraw from the class. Regardless, I left that semester with so many new life skills that I still use to this day and will 100% use, decades into the future.
If you would’ve approached me two years ago and said that I would be graduating with my Associate’s Degree from Housatonic before graduating high school, I would have never believed it. You know how as kids, we are told that there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? The idea of actually reaching this goal sounded as outlandish as finding a pot of gold, with a dancing leprechaun to celebrate.
While I had many ups and downs throughout my first year I finally made it to the Summer of 2020 in one piece. Our society was in shambles, but I actually found myself benefitting from the hold on in-person learning. As a full time high school student, I struggled with balancing the time commitment that being dually enrolled in a school so far from home required.Commuting to and from school each week was really taking a toll on me in the spring so switching to virtual learning was exactly what I needed. That summer I took a leap and enrolled in 3 expedited courses.
It all started with a TikTok I saw during the Summer of 2019. In this video, a girl explained her dual enrollment process and how she achieved her Associate’s Degree as a senior in high school. I was completely dumbfounded by this concept, never having heard of it before but decided to ask my mom about it. The idea of being able to achieve this unique accomplishment while preparing for my future really enticed me, and ultimately led me to moving forward towards the enrollment process. One thing led to another and it was August 10th, if my memory serves me correctly, that I went in to take my placement exam.
“Looking back
over the last 2 years I Professor Cain, my instructor of Intro to am in awe of how far I’ve Biology, was absolutely amazing. I distinctly remember how on the first day of classes she come, and can’t wait to wrote my name on our digital white board and drew a heart around it simply because see what I’ll accomplish I answered the question correctly. Simple things like that made it easier to enjoy class and want to be there as a student. She truly next.”
I went in with another friend from my school. I would get to know this friend tremendously well over the next semester as we commuted an hour and a half each way two times a week together on the MetroNorth. While we often rotated napping schedules and played uno with 30 card starting hands, we also prepared each other for the highs and lows that were soon to come. While I tested into Pre-Calc with Professor Philips, Latoya enrolled in public speaking, which lit the match for our future as college students! During that time, I was able to test my limits and really see where I stood not necessarily as a student but as a learner. It’s always been fairly easy for me to do well in school but being in this completely new environment, with completely new material tested my perseverance and ultimately provided me with a lot of life skills I will use throughout my entire adult life. Despite all of this, I was not performing at a mastery level in this course and doubted my ability to pass the class. After many
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HORIZONS Spring 2022
showed me that learning could be an engaging and two-sided experience. On our last day of Zoom classes we all turned our cameras on to say final goodbyes and I found myself getting unexpectedly emotional. During this time I was able to exceed what I once thought were my limits and find an entire new side of myself that was exciting to learn. I believe that my perspective on teacher-student relationships changed and finally saw school for what it should be, an opportunity, not an obligation. While unfortunately my time with Mrs. Cain had to come to an end, after 5 short weeks, I was determined to show the world her kindness. That following semester, in my first ever official writing class at HCC, I wrote a profile about her, which you may have actually read from our 2020 Fall issue! I went on and on about how much I enjoyed her class only to realize now that it was her as a person that impacted me, not what I was learning. From there on I began realizing that achieving my Associate’s was actually quite plausible. I officially declared my major in Journalism and Communications, which is also when I was assigned to Professor Mark
