Aragon will offer five dual enrollment courses next school year: biotechnology, finance, kinesiology, video production and business. Dual enrollment classes are free college-level courses that span a variety of subjects, many of which are new to Aragon’s curriculum.
In the past, a common choice for students looking to explore new subjects was to sign up for concurrent enrollment, in which they would go to a college campus to take a course. In contrast, dual enrollment courses take place on the Aragon campus. Like the term “dual enrollment” implies, students earn credits twice from one course, once on their high school transcript and once on their college transcripts.
“I would say that [one of] the top benefits [of dual enrollment courses] would be … [that] you’re already building a college transcript,” said academic counselor Lea Sanguinetti. “That means that wherever you go after high school, that college transcript will follow you and those credits will follow you. That in turn saves you time, because if you’re showing up to college with credits [already] taken care of, … you would probably be earning your degree even earlier.”
Each of the new dual enrollment courses explores a subject that no other course at Aragon covers in-depth. However, regardless of what subject students find most engaging, there are many underlying key skill sets that all the courses help develop.
“Whether you are entering a career after high school or going to college, … you still have to be career ready,” said biotechnology and AP Biology teacher Katherine Ward. “You still have to know what that world of work is like, how to negotiate that world, how to network and how to market yourself. [Students] are really starting to look at what [they] need to know beyond high school about the next few steps in the journey.”
Students, too, look toward the many benefits of dual enrollment courses.
“Because [biotechnology] is a CTE course as well, you do get to learn career skills,” said junior Hannah Hsiao. “You also learn how to make a resume, and you learn how to become better with your time management skills.”
There are a few ways dual enrollment courses differ from AP courses. In an AP course, students take an AP exam at the end of the year to determine whether or not they will receive college credits for that course. However, in a dual enrollment course, college credits are generated each semester as long as a student passes with a C- or higher.
“I think [students] should ask themselves if it is a class that they’re interested in or if it is a class that they are wanting to learn more about,” said academic counselor Josephine Ho. “If any [course] is an interest, I don’t think students should be fearful of taking the class because they’re worried [about an] increase of workload. If it’s something that they are truly interested in, I think that [their] interest will definitely carry [them] further and help propel [them] to then take the course.”
Dual enrollment courses are available for any student next year, and they come without a GPA requirement to apply. Any students considering these options can discuss the possibilities with their counselors in the upcoming month.
