Dual Credit Student Blog
This school year, in particular, is unlike any other —these monthly blogs offer an up-close-and-personal view of the dual credit program at North Idaho
College from a variety of perspectives. NIC is recruiting NIC high school students to share their dual credit experience with others.
To inquire about submitting a blog, email victoria.michael@nic.edu. If you have any questions our students, feel free to reach out at the
provided email. If you’d like to speak with a Dual Credit coordinator, call (208) 625-2329 or visit nic.edu/dualcredit.
Meet our Student Blogger
Hello, I’m Katie a Senior at LCHS and Dual Enrolled Student at NIC. I am going to school for an Econ degree and eventually law school. However, I’m a pet lover, mental health advocate, procrastinator, and fixer. All of these helped motivated me to be able to shed some light on the NIC dual enrolled program. Some of the things I do for fun are play video games, try too hard at debate, bake, and sew. If you have any questions please reach me at my email (kjrode@nic.edu) or DM me (@katie.rode on Instagram).
Spring 2021
2/25/2021
This year has been crazy and I’m cautiously excited for this new year coming up. Senior year has been rough, to say the least.
I’m sure you must have struggled with something this semester? Maybe it was online classes, trying to find a job, or even just expressing your beliefs?
I can promise you I have been frustrated by these same questions this year.
We’ve all struggled through a lot and honestly, it would be a lie to say that it hasn’t gotten to me. On one side, the constant online negativity and from the other constant reminders about how “we’re all in this together.” It has really taken a toll on how I’ve felt and responded to things this year. Being dual-enrolled has doubled the number of emails for me about how we’re doing
“great.” The up in the air nature of my high school’s pandemic response has also made it difficult to be productive during this year.
However, I’m really proud of myself, and I hope you are proud of yourself as well. We made it through 2020, and are ready to move on.
Additionally, keeping track of everything on my plate between classes, work, and scholarships has
been difficult, to say the least. Have you struggled with it as well?
I had a pretty heavy load this year, but I found a pretty good way to keep ahead of the curve (I’ll share those later) in my classes. I think it’s important to recognize our successes. With that in mind, I’m honestly proud of the effort it has taken to keep my grades and my mental state in check. This is an accomplishment, even if it hasn’t been my best year.
Thankfully, NIC does offer more freedom and a wider selection of course offering compared to high school. It is one of my favorite thing about dual credit.
This year, however, I really struggled to find in-person classes that fit in my schedule. Of my 15 credits, only 7 of them are in person. I know most of the classes will be in person when the pandemic is over, but by then, I plan to be at the University of Idaho.
One example of freedom — I love working out, but I’m not a fan of daily weights or an hour-and-a-half of cardio every other day. One thing I noticed is there are a ton of cool workout classes at NIC, like spinning or rock climbing, that just can’t be offered in the same way at a high school.
As for selection, Lake City High School, for example, offers only two Economics classes. One is the required econ course to graduate and the other is a business management class. As I am planning to major in Economics, I wanted more options.
At NIC, I was able to take an evening Econ 201 course and learned so much about things I will use throughout my college career. A large amount of what I learned, my peers in high school didn’t — like both micro and macro Economics. I feel at NIC I get to go more in-depth about the things I care about in school. I also feel the scheduling flexibility of classes is beneficial when I’m also working a part-time job.
So online classes (Zoom and recorded video and lectures) did allow me freedom in my learning. I was worried about staying motivated but I found others ways to stay productive, social, and get good grades with so many online classes.
The hardest transition for me as a dual credit student was learning NIC grading scales. You
can’t miss almost any assignments and keep good grades, and the additional pressure knowing my NIC classes would be on my college transcript scared me at first.
That pressure along with the addition work added to my schedule was a lot to handle in the beginning.
It took a lot of willpower and self-motivation to do the work required to make dual-enrolled
worthwhile. I do feel anyone can do it. I feel a sense of pride from getting good grades at
NIC and that makes the hard work worth it. I also know that putting the work in now will make the next few years of my education easier.
Honestly, I feel like I made the right decision to dual enroll at NIC and I’m excited about completing the spring semester to graduate! I’ll keep you guys updated and next I will share some of my study and motivation tips.
