Junior Jouranlists

Early College students have great advantages available to them, but with all things great, there are disadvantages as well. In an average high school, students have the option to participate in extracurricular activities readily accessible to them. Most students get to participate in a wide variety of activities during school hours, as well as after-school activities. Because of limited space and time on the college campus, though, it’s hard to have extracurricular activities going on for the Early College students.

Even though there aren’t many activities at GCSU available to Early College students, they still have the benefit of going back to their respective high school or middle school to participate in after-school activities.

Some activities the students of Early College participate in at their respective local public schools are cheerleading, football, basketball, soccer, track and field, baseball, brigade, chorus, beta club, Spanish club and math team.

There are a few of our early college students that participate in activities at their individual school (Putnam County High School, Baldwin County High School, Oak Hill Middle School, Putnam County Middle School). Although there are many activities at the other schools for Early College students, some are not able to take advantage of the same opportunities of regular high school students.

When asked what disadvantages there are to being a GCEC student rather than a regular high school student when it comes to extracurricular activities, Early College sophomore and Baldwin County High School football player Raheem Waller said: “The disadvantage is I can’t participate in pep rallies or assemblies, etc. that the other players get to do.”

When asked what advantages there are in attending GCEC, but also being allowed to do extracurricular activities at Baldwin, Waller said: “The advantage I have is I can get two years of college completed and still do sports at my local high school.”

“The advantage I have is that I’m getting to experience class on a college campus like a college student. But I still get to be my age and participate in sports as well cheerleading,” sophomore cheerleader Marisa Horne said.

While most GCEC students still have to go back to their respective high school or middle school to participate in extracurricular activities, for the first time a few students at Early College have come together to form their own extracurricular opportunities.

For example, there is the Early College dance team. Concerning how it feels to be one of the first GCEC extracurricular participants, freshman dance team manager Drake Walls said: “It feels exciting because we get to try new things we’ve never done before and try different things with the kids. We are using all the kids’ creativeness to form our dance team. Everybody has a part in being involved.”

Due to the cooperation between Early College and Baldwin’s extracurricular activities, many Early College students still have the benefit of being able to keep in touch with friends at their middle and high schools. Although attending Early College means not being able to participate in every activity at those schools, many of the Early College students are still getting the unique opportunity to receive a quality education by attending GCEC.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 18 2009. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry