Internet Gives High-Schoolers Taste of College
By Nick Sambides Jr., Bangor Daily News, Maine
Apr. 23–HOWLAND, Maine — Samantha Hockridge plans to go to college and she’s not wasting time.
Already ambitious enough to take on a National Honor Society membership, cheerleading and two other sports, the 18-year-old Passadumkeag resident is taking University of Maine online courses as a Penobscot Valley High School senior.
“I would rather do it now than have the pressure of doing a lot of college courses in college,” Hockridge said. “It’s easier to do it now because I am comfortable here, and I know I have a lot of support.”
Hockridge isn’t alone in feeling that way. She is among about a dozen PVHS students, and about 150 juniors and seniors from 90 of the state’s 140 high schools, who take UMaine college courses via the Internet each semester, said Jim Patterson, coordinator of the university’s Academ-e program.
Since it began about two years ago, the program has carried about $800,000 worth of tuitioned college programming paid for by the universities, public schools and private institutions, Patterson said.
The program’s goal, Patterson said, is to do as Hockridge said: to let ambitious and properly qualified high school students taste the rigors of university academia without costing themselves a dime.
“To me it’s like an insurance policy,” Patterson said. “Students get a sense as to what they will be needing in the fall [before enrolling in college], so they get to see what a strong college course is.”
University-level courses in Maine high schools are nothing new, but previous programs relied upon commuting, which limited student access to programs, Patterson said. The Internet destroys that limitation.
It’s a good program for UMaine, SAD 31 Superintendent Jerry White said, because it increases the likelihood of getting state high schoolers enrolled there.
The enrolled high schools have responded well to the program, Patterson said, earning a 3.2 grade point average over the first three semesters.
PVHS enrollment in the program has steadily increased since it began, said Nancy Burgoyne, coordinator of SAD 31′s Gifted and Talented program and other special education efforts.
Students are flocking to it because they see it as a chance to get ahead of the competition to get into college, she said.
Juniors Audrey Lachance of West Enfield and Julie Theriault of Enfield and seniors Jake Adams of West Enfield, Courtney Robbins of Enfield and Catherine Smith of Burlington, all honors students, are taking college courses this spring.
They use the Long Distance Learning Room, Room 109, at the high school during study periods or their home computers to take the course. Burgoyne said she hopes that the room can eventually be used to teach college courses to adult education enrollees.
The courses, they said, are challenging because they require them to work harder at managing their schedules, just as college courses do.
“You don’t have the teachers leaning over you to make sure you get things done,” Lachance, 17, said. “It’s really up to you to get it done.”
“The most rewarding thing about this for me is that feeling that I have achieved something, gone beyond what I would have done,” Smith said. “College is a big thing.”
And since most of the students expect to be paying for college by themselves, they have also saved themselves some money, Smith said.
“It’s money I don’t have to spend or work for,” she said.
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