Juggling it all
Teen balances dual-enrollment
and multiple deep interests,
and finds a lot of joy in it
By Alana Peiffer
Knightly News Reporter
Oct. 6 finally arrived: My first day of college class.
Sitting in my high-school tech room, in Upper Dauphin Area Hgh School, in Elizabethville, I felt very ready to take on this new adventure but scared about what I might be getting myself into.
I knew when I walked into the guidance office over the summer to schedule my senior-year classes that this was the route I wanted to take, but I wasn’t sure what I had signed up for would be like. I didn’t want to feel as though I wasted my senior year working long hours over the summer. No. I wanted to be a kid this year. But I was wrong in thinking I would be missing out on something because I was not doing what my friends were doing. Many more opportunities presented themselves in the great so-called “out there” than I could’ve imagined.
The days could be very stressful—and some were—but I’ve learned many much-need skills through this amazing dual high school-college enrollment.
Each day looks very different, but that change keeps me on my toes. I usually begin my week with church on Sunday morning. This is a staple for setting my week off right. Following all the Sunday festivities with my family, I usually quickly glance over the work I will have for my college classes for that week, and then I make a list of that week’s priorities, and I shut my computer until Monday.
When Monday dawns, the fun begins. I am my Future Farmers of America (FFA) chapter’s president, so I lead a meeting every Monday morning, starting at 7:10. My high school begins at 8 a.m. so when that time arrives, I head to my classes. I have three morning classes before my first opportunity to work on my college work. Four of my eight classes are periods set aside to complete my college work. I am enrolled in two classes for the fall term at Central Penn College, so I try my best to divide my time evenly to ensure all my class work gets done.
In addition to being a high school student and college student, I’m also a child of God, an athlete, a musician, a team manager, a farmhand, a waitress, a daughter, a sister and a girlfriend. Lots of different hats to wear, right? Learning to juggle everything was the hardest but best lesson I learned through it all. It was all about figuring out how I could give 100 percent in each of these areas and not burn out.
Boy, did I learn quickly.
Let me explain a bit about each of the roles I carry out. I played soccer all four years in high school career and was a team captain for two years. I play electric, acoustic and bass guitar, cajon (a wood-box percussion instrument played by a person slapping his or her hands on it) and sing for my youth group/church-worship team. I have been the high-school wrestling-team manager for the last three years, and that’s a party every day, but they are like a second family to me in the winter. I worked as a farmhand, handling a variety or farm jobs, from potato packing to beef shipping, along with doing some media design on the side for a farm in Pitman, Schuylkill County. I waitress during the school year because I can’t make it to the farm after school. I am a daughter to two wonderful, Godly parents and a sister to my only brother, Jordan. I am also a girlfriend to my loving, God-fearing boyfriend, Jacob.
Throwing college and high school responsibilities on top of all of that can be overwhelming from time to time, but you have to look for the joy in all you do. I truly enjoy every aspect of my busy life. All these different roles I fulfill and activities I participate in make me the person I am.
When I compare CPC to my small-town high school, I see some key differences. One difference is that all my college classes are online, and all of my high-school classes are in person. It can definitely be tricky to balance it all, but it gets easier as it goes. I would say that online-class assignments can be trickier to remember to complete, but if you want a good grade, you will learn very fast how helpful it is to write yourself reminders about the work you need to complete for the week. In my high-school classes, I constantly have a teacher reminding me about the work that is due, but not so much for my college classes.
I have only four high-school classes, and that’s not so hard to manage. Those classes are student helpdesk which is a tech-help class; college English; supervised agricultural experience, which is a class dedicated to working on an agriculture-related project; and agronomy, which is the science of managing field crops and soil.
I am extremely grateful for the support I’ve received from my professors at Central Penn, seeing as I am not at the college in person. I appreciate the fast emails and willingness to work around my high-school schedule to provide me with the help I need.
This experience has allowed me to grow more as a person than I would have imagined. I feel that dual school enrollment has allowed me to hone my understanding and appreciation of the importance of time management. I’ve learned to juggle my roles each week while still finding joy through the juggling. I’m excited to see where the rest of this journey takes me.
Comment or story idea? Contact [email protected].
Edited by media-club co-adviser and this blog’s editor, Professor Michael Lear-Olimpi.
