Last school year, while scrolling through her Canvas notifications, Tiffany Luu (12) stumbled across a Google Form, titled “Dual enrollment is coming to Westview!” The form listed a variety of potential new course offerings, ranging from Sociology to Astronomy. Liu filled out the form, showing her interest in potential new dual enrollment courses.
This year, Westview implemented a new course option stemming from this form; Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. Like other courses, Anthropology is held at Westview, yet this one is taught by a Palomar College professor.
Luu signed up for the class, curious to see what it had to offer.
Going into the course, Luu expected the class to be difficult, similar to the advanced classes that Westview offers.
“I thought the class would be hard,” Luu said. “It’s a college course so I was expecting a bigger workload.”
Cultural Anthropology is held first period on Tuesdays and Thursdays, similar to scheduling seen in actual colleges. Instead of being a work-heavy class as well, the course is lecture-based, preparing the students for the structure of future college courses.
The class professor, Jeff McKendricks, has taught dual-enrollment classes at other schools and has brought this knowledge and experience to Westview. Though the class is a college-course, McKendricks has learned to slightly gear the curriculum to high-schoolers.
“Students taking this course are living in their present and future on the same campus at the same time,” McKendricks said. “Hence, their choices on deadlines may be a bit more casual.”
Through taking this course, Luu has learned what the responsibilities of a college student are, preparing her for her future outside of Westview.
“When you’re in college, you can’t expect your professors to know you unless you proactively make an effort to know them first,” Luu said. “The class has taught me to be independent and proactive, due to the overall class atmosphere.”
The class is set up to be highly independent, focusing on lectures and weekly assignments rather than daily assignments, as many other Westview classes do.
“The class has kept me accountable for my work, because like in college, it’s your choice whether you show up to class, or whether you study or not,” Luu said.
Luu said she believes that more classes like this would be beneficial to Westview’s students.
“If this class was offered my freshman year, I definitely would’ve taken advantage of it,” Luu said. “There are many classes I would’ve loved to take, but they weren’t offered through Westview’s course offerings.”
McKendricks also said the class can be beneficial to students, one of the ways being through its accelerated structure.
“Taking a college class while in highschool gives a student a chance to test the waters of college before being at a college completely. That would be a bigger commitment and at times costly,” Mckendricks said. “This is a testbed for a student on the fence. It can alleviate potential fear of a future full time college student.”
Though Westview is the first PUSD school to offer dual-enrollment courses, McKendricks has seen the benefits that the courses have brought to other schools.
“For many reasons, I believe [dual enrollment classes] should be normalized throughout [high schools,]” McKendricks said. “A college course is the equivalent to a high school year of study in one semester,” McKendricks said. “The credits earned in dual enrollment cancel out a year of credits at the high school level.”
