Episode 42- Gabriella Jager/AA Degrees
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[00:00:14] Tiffiny: Well, welcome to another episode of Sage Studio. I'm Tiffiny Webster, and today I am joined by Gabriella Jager, which is such a treat because Gabriella is now alumni of Sage Oak and we are bringing her back to the podcast. She was on the podcast once before when we were talking about prom and A.S.B.. So Gabriella, welcome back to Sage Studio.
[00:00:37] Gabriella: Thank you. Thanks for having me again.
[00:00:40] Tiffiny: Absolutely. We love talking with students, especially once they've graduated and we get a chance to check in with them and see how things are going or what the next chapter is. And you have such a great story to tell. So I wanted to make sure our listeners hear your story today, and that is that.
[00:00:58] Not only did you just recently graduate from Sage Oak's High School, but you also graduated with an associates degree. Congratulations. Yes, thank you. What is your associates degree in?
[00:01:12] Gabriella: I actually earned five. So they were in math physics. I had two in physics, astronomy and engineering.
[00:01:20] Tiffiny: Okay. Wait, back it up. She did not just earn one associate's degree. Roll through those again. Say them. How many did you earn? I earned five. You earned five associates degrees. Okay. And then say the subjects that they're
[00:01:34] Gabriella: in. Okay. Yes. I earned one in math, two in physics, one in astronomy, and one in engineering.
[00:01:40] Tiffiny: Wow, that is incredible. Thank you. Did you plan on earning all of those associates degrees when you started here
[00:01:49] Gabriella: with Sage Oak? No, not at all. I started just taking one community college course in foreign language. Like the, my first semester freshman year, and the reason I took it was not at all to get some associates degrees, but rather just because I wanted to take like a year long course in like the time of a semester.
[00:02:10] So I really wanted some of the other benefits of community college courses. But as I progressed through high school and took more community college courses, I kind of just followed into place and I started looking into associate degrees during my junior year. And during then I started looking at some subjects I was interested in and I'm like, oh, there's only three more courses I need to get this.
[00:02:30] And those were ones I wanted to take anyway, or maybe I only need to take one additional course in this one.
[00:02:35] Tiffiny: Wow. Okay. So let me just back that up again. You have, yes. It's such an amazing story. Okay, so you are in your freshman year of high school and you decided that you'd want to take one course in a language other than English.
[00:02:47] And what language was that? Yes. It was Spanish. Spanish, okay. So you say you're working with your EA and they suggest, Hey, why don't you take this at a community college? You can take the Spanish class, and one of the main benefits of taking a class at a community college is that what would normally take you an entire year to complete at the high school level.
[00:03:07] If you take a class at the community college, not only do you get double the credits, but you can also complete the course in just a semester instead of a whole year.
[00:03:17] So that must have sounded pretty good to you,
[00:03:19] Gabriella: right? Yes. Yeah. Yes, definitely.
[00:03:23] Tiffiny: Yeah. I think most high school students understand that, wait a minute, I can take a course that would normally take me an entire year in a semester. Yes, please. Yes. Okay. So you decide to take this class and it's the one and only community college class that you're taking at that time.
[00:03:38] Is that right? Yes. Yes, that's correct. Were you taking it in person or online?
[00:03:43] Gabriella: That one was online. But primarily for like my freshman and sophomore year, all the community college courses I took were online. And then I started doing a couple in person junior
[00:03:52] Tiffiny: and senior year. Okay. So you start off with this one class it must have gone pretty well, and then next semester did you start to take more than one class
[00:04:02] Gabriella: at a time?
[00:04:03] Second semester I just took the second Spanish course and it was then the next year that I started taking two to three courses a semester.
[00:04:10] Tiffiny: Okay, got it. So now you get those initial courses under your belt and you start to think, okay, this is a pretty good deal. And so then you start to take more and more classes.
[00:04:21] As you mentioned, at one point you started to say to yourself, okay, I have taken so many classes now that I'm like this close to an associate's degree. What was the first associate's degree that
[00:04:32] Gabriella: you earned? Most of them kinda fell into place at once because like there was like a math course that kind of applied to more than one, so, Things like that.
[00:04:42] But I think the engineering one was, that was the first one that I fully completed.
[00:04:47] Tiffiny: Okay. Now you just addressed one of my other questions, and this is a good hack and that is that you can take a class and it can apply to multiple. AA degrees. So did you start to intentionally choose classes that could apply to multiple AA degrees, or was it just one of those things that like as you started to take it, you're like, oh wow, this could count for both this AA degree and that AA degree.
[00:05:13] Gabriella: I had to take a physics course and when I was looking at the different degree options I saw that it could count for another one of the courses required for the math one. Physics one of course. And the astronomy one as well for the engineering as well, I guess.
[00:05:27] So, I could see that they could count for so many different ones. So then after that I did look like, oh, I could take either this math course or this one, but the second one could also count towards my physics degree, so I would opt
[00:05:39] Tiffiny: towards the second one. Wow, that's incredible. Okay, so you start going down this pathway of maximizing, right? You are like, okay, I can take this course, I can get it high school credit. I can get college credit, I can start working towards an AA in that subject and I can apply this to another, if not a third or fourth.
[00:06:02] AA as well. Yeah. So that's pretty smart, very strategic. How did you figure all this out? Was your EA helping you? Were the college counselors helping you? How did you figure this out?
[00:06:13] Gabriella: Yes, I had a lot of support. So my EA would help me find certain courses that were not necessarily in my home community college.
[00:06:21] I could take a, like different one online to find good courses that would work my, with my schedule and apply to those. My parents were also very supportive in helping me find out this information. And the counselors at the community college is that I attended were also so helpful in helping me into the right direction.
[00:06:41] And like I highly suggest if you take a course, go talk to them as well as your EA and like so's so many people that can help you out. And I would highly recommend just asking for help cuz you might get information that you did not even know you
[00:06:54] Tiffiny: needed. I think is really smart, and I think it's good that you gave that advice to ask for help.
[00:06:58] I know that sometimes, you know, if you're in high school, you might feel a little intimidated about going and talking to a college counselor or giving them a call or sending an email. But I have found when I spoke with these counselors on behalf of my students before, like they're very helpful they to help.
[00:07:12] Did you find that?
[00:07:14] Gabriella: Yes. Yeah. No. Like there was no one that I talked to that like, seemed irritated that I was asking questions or anything like that.
[00:07:21] Tiffiny: It sounds like you ended up going to more than one community college, is that right? I did, yes. Tell me about that.
[00:07:28] Gabriella: So, like the main reason I did it is like when I started taking like the online courses I took them at a community college, like in a different county than I was in.
[00:07:37] So when I went to go take in-person ones it made a lot more sense to take courses that were closer by. So I started taking 'em at my local community college. But then I did find that maybe there was like a specific like engineering course that sounded really interesting at one community college.
[00:07:54] And because they were all California community colleges, they would transfer
[00:07:59] Tiffiny: between each other.
[00:08:00] What was your biggest motivating factor for wanting to go after the associates degrees?
[00:08:06] Gabriella: I really liked how I could take a year long course in a semester, like still get double credits for it.
[00:08:12] So I really liked that as well as the fact that I could take some higher level courses and like really ones that really interested me. And so once I found about the AA I saw that it was so close and I really wanted to accomplish this goal. Like because it might help me find a job while I'm in university next year.
[00:08:31] Because of that, I took more courses in like astronomy and physics like fields that I now want to
[00:08:37] Tiffiny: study. So taking these courses not only gave you, you know, that little boost in credit, it condensed the amount of time that you're working on classes, but you started to really discover what you were passionate about in interested in.
[00:08:50] Yes, and I think that's a really important factor because some students may want to follow a path like yours that is pretty incredible. Some students might just want to earn maybe one aa, some may just want to explore. Right. But I think that's a really important point that you're saying is these classes really helped you to learn at a little bit higher level, but in subjects that you were curious about.
[00:09:14] So you have all of your associates degrees, and I know now that you are planning on starting college in the fall, but you actually, surprisingly decided to go to a school where your credits for these AA degrees didn't actually transfer in. So talk to me about that. Why would you earn all of these associates degrees and then choose to go to a school that didn't accept all of those credits as you enrolled?
[00:09:43] Gabriella: Yeah. Well, I guess the main reason why I chose this college that I will be attending this fall is because I got a very big scholarship there.
[00:09:52] So that really motivated which school I chose. I also really like pretty much everything about this school that I chose. But there I found that there were so many benefits outside of credits transferring to the university for the associate degrees. So even like transferring the credits is not my original goal at all.
[00:10:10] So if you do find, maybe you're looking at colleges that won't accept your credits, I would still totally recommend taking community college courses because at least in my case, it really helped me feel prepared to see what a college class is like.
[00:10:24] I really feel like it's like more confident in myself and that I can be successful in classes at my university. Earning the associate degrees helped me stand out against other applicants, helped me get into top colleges and even earn scholarships from them. So I really think that it also helped me get in and just stand out against the other applicants.
[00:10:44] Tiffiny: That's awesome. Was your scholarship in relationship to your AAs?
[00:10:49] Gabriella: So, because I was able to explore like different classes through taking community college courses and was able to find that I'm really interested in religious studies and like physics and astronomy. I was able to then apply that and describe that in my application, which will then earned me this scholarship.
[00:11:08] Tiffiny: Wow. That is incredible. I think that's an important thing for students to remember too, is that sometimes the biggest benefit is credits for sure.
[00:11:15] That's kind of like the one that I think everybody is looking for. Right? If I take this now, it's going to get me ahead of the game when I go to apply, but yes. I like that you mentioned that sometimes there's benefits like hiding beneath the surface, like it makes you a stronger candidate. It gives you something to really write about in your applications and in your essays it can earn you scholarships.
[00:11:36] All of those things Yes. Are so valuable. What about like intrinsically, like as a person, did earning those AA degrees help you grow at all? Would you say? Definitely
[00:11:47] Gabriella: Especially in like some of the courses that I was in, like having to interact with students that might have been much older than me.
[00:11:54] So, it really helped me, like socially like learning how to interact with different groups of people as well as helped me mature in going in person and taking these courses with a bunch of people I don't know. And making sure I'm staying on top of deadlines.
[00:12:09] So it helped me in so many ways.
[00:12:11] Tiffiny: How is it different when you take a college course? Let's start first with online. When you take a college course online, how is it different than taking a high school course?
[00:12:19] Gabriella: I know a lot of the courses that I took at least like for my high school courses were more self-paced. Mm-hmm. So I could kinda make my own schedule and maybe work more one week and take another week off. But for the community college, you have to complete like the week's assignment each week.
[00:12:37] All the deadlines are hard so you have to make sure that you complete it by that time. And then the course load is a little bit more. Mm-hmm. But that, I think that's mostly just because it's a year long course condensed in a semester.
[00:12:49] But I do have to note. That. Though the workload like was more there, I did still have some high school courses that like had even more higher workload than some community college ones.
[00:12:59] Tiffiny: Oh, that's interesting. Okay, good. So it's kind of a myth that just because it's a college course, it's going to be like way harder, all this extra work.
[00:13:07] Yeah. That's not necessarily the case. No, not at all. Okay, cool. I think some people will be very relieved to hear that. Talk to me about the experience of taking an in-person class. Were you so nervous the first time that you took an in-person community college class, or were you like, oh, this, I got this. No problem.
[00:13:26] Gabriella: I was very nervous. My first time just cuz like I knew I would not know anyone in the course.
[00:13:32] And I thought I would be like much younger than anyone else. But that was really cool whenever I first like walked into the door there was like a huge age range. So there were other dual enrollment students as well as like some students that were returning to college.
[00:13:48] So I thought that was really cool and definitely made me feel more comfortable, but I was so nervous walking into my first one.
[00:13:55] Tiffiny: I don't blame you. What would your advice be to students who might be considering taking a community college class while they're in high school?
[00:14:03] Gabriella: I like wholeheartedly recommend just trying it. Start with one, see how you like it, and then you can add more on from there. You don't have to have this whole huge plan right from the beginning that you'll be taking these courses, like to get this associate's degree. I like recommend just starting by taking one course and seeing how you like it.
[00:14:26] Tiffiny: Yeah, that's good advice for sure. Okay. So you're moving away to go to school in the fall, which is so exciting, that's a major life event.
[00:14:35] Gabriella: I am planning on majoring in astrophysics
[00:14:38] Tiffiny: and religious studies.
[00:14:40] And then where do you think that will take you?
[00:14:43] Gabriella: I am really interested in getting a PhD in astrophysics and becoming a scientific researcher.
[00:14:50] Tiffiny: Wow, that sounds so good.
[00:14:54] I think you will definitely be prepared for that. I mean, if anything you've demonstrated, not only do you have a passion for the subject area, you are an excellent student of this subject matter, but you have the drive and the discipline and everything else it takes to be successful as well.
[00:15:09] So you should feel very proud of yourself. We are so proud of you here at Sage Oak. Gabriella, it's always so good to talk to you. Thank you so much for coming on Stage Studio today and sharing your story with us. We appreciate it so much. Thank you for having me. Of course, as always. All right, we wish you all the best.
[00:15:27] Keep us posted and maybe we'll do another follow up in a little bit and see how things are going for you. All right. Thanks Gabriella.
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