When Jetta Harvey starts
college at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln this fall, she’ll have 42
dual-credit hours already completed. This puts her at a second-semester
sophomore status, but she can still receive freshman scholarships since she’ll
be a first-year college student.
“Dual-credit has set me up
for success in college because so many of the demands have already been
asked of me,” Harvey said. “I am so excited to get to UNL in the fall and see
all the pieces come together. I feel so confident and ready to succeed.”
Harvey is a Beatrice resident
who was home-schooled when she decided to take advantage of Southeast Community
College’s DC Advantage program, one of three dual-credit programs SCC offers to
high school students. DC Advantage allows students in SCC’s 15-county service
area to take dual-credit courses and receive a scholarship that covers 50% of
the tuition and fees. Harvey said it was a no-brainer to take advantage of this
program.
“The thought of being able to
get college classes done while in high school and have them out of the way before
college seemed like a no-brainer, like the logical thing to do,” she said. “I
knew what my major was going to be so I knew exactly what classes I
needed to take. I want to get a professional degree.”
Harvey will study nursing and
hopes to eventually become a nurse practitioner. She’s already been accepted
into the University of Nebraska Medical Center-Lincoln nursing program because
of her excellent college grade-point average. She’ll be able to officially
start her first year of college with a light load of 12 credit hours for both
semesters. However, it wasn’t always easy to earn all these college credits.
“It was very challenging, I
made some mistakes,” Harvey admitted. “The biggest one was taking College
Algebra online dual credit. I had to teach myself the material. I
struggled. Also, I bit off more than I could chew one semester and had to
withdraw from a class and lost money. These are not high school classes that
happen to qualify for college. These are college classes that happen to count
for high school. Therefore, the rigor, demands and expectations cannot be
underestimated.”
Harvey reflected on her
experiences with DC Advantage and said it’s definitely worth the work and
sacrifice to earn the college credits. Going to UNL, she said, would never have
been affordable if she didn’t have all these college credits and scholarships.
She hopes other students will do the same.
“I cannot encourage students
enough to take advantage of this opportunity,” she said. “I’m saving over
$20,000 by taking dual-credit classes and plan to graduate debt-free. I’m also
receiving scholarships because it’s evident on my applications that I want to
go to college and I’m strong for the task. Taking dual-credit classes was the
best thing I did in high school.”
When Harvey isn’t studying
she enjoys playing and teaching the piano, taking part in 4-H and playing
tennis.