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College at warp speed

A 17-year-old family friend is graduating from high school a year early.  She will attend college this fall.  And if you think that is going to college too fast, try this on for size:

Like other 16-year-olds, Joycelyn Nguyen of Simi Valley is jazzed about getting her driver’s license. She likes to hang out with her girlfriends and admits that she sometimes procrastinates and often doesn’t make her bed in the morning.

Joycelyn said she’s looking forward to starting her senior year of high school in the fall, but first she has another milestone to savor — graduation Thursday from Moorpark College.

Joycelyn took her first community college class when she was 13. Since last August, she has attended the High School at Moorpark College, where teens from throughout the region take their math, science and foreign language classes, as well as electives. Moorpark is the largest of Ventura County’s three community colleges.

The alternative two-year high school for juniors and seniors has been around for six years, and in that time, at least half a dozen students have received their high school and junior college diplomas in the same month. But Joycelyn is the school’s first student to complete community college before finishing high school.

Before anybody out there starts hyperventilating about pushing kids too fast:

The school, which has graduated more than 250 students so far, is designed to appeal to teens who don’t feel academically challenged, are bored or feel out of place in a traditional high school setting. Courses at the High School at Moorpark College place more emphasis on writing essays, teamwork and class discussion. There are fewer tests and limited class lectures.

Also, it’s not as though Nguyen will go straight into the workforce: she wants to go on to UCLA to go into medicine.  Overall, we don’t see too many downsides.  And even if we did, who cares?  After all, the choice was ultimately up to the parents, no?