17-Year-Old Ohio Student Receives Her College Degree Before Graduating High School
She's the first in her school.
Facebook A Ohio teen is wasting no time when it comes to her education by securing herself a college degree at just 17 years old.
The Lakeview High School student is shaking up the traditional route with some seriously impressive multitasking.
The Ohio student got her college degree before graduating high school.
Abbie Campana was a student at Lakeview high school and she had been taking college classes at Youngstown State University (YSU).
Campana’s school went into a hybrid schedule during the pandemic, so she decided to take college classes at YSU through the college credit plus program in her sophomore year which was free for certain students who qualified.
Campana had a good college experience, so she decided to do it again in her senior year. She said, "Each class that I took from YSU, counted towards my diploma at Lakeview."
After 80 credit hours, Campana earned her associate's degree in Business Administration from YSU with a 4.0 GPA.
She found the college classes a bit challenging at first and she prides herself on how much she has accomplished.
"It was intimidating at first but no more difficult than the high school classes I was sitting in, in sophomore year," she said.
"I am a student who will always strive to push myself and reach the goals that I have set for myself which I exceeded with how I feel and graduating as valedictorian from Lakeview was a huge accomplishment that I was reaching for and then also with honors at YSU."
Abbie Campana is the first student at Lakeview to graduate with a college degree.
Earning a college degree before earning a high school diploma is a huge accomplishment. Not many people would have even thought about doing it, however, Campana has just proved it’s possible.
"It was huge holding two diplomas in my hand at Lakeview's graduation, that was crazy to me," Campana said.
"It feels surreal in a way because I am the first to do it and I hope there will be many more after me."
Campana plans to go to Bowling Green State University.
She mentioned that she will go to Bowling Green State University to get her bachelor's degree in Supply Chain Management.
However, she won’t have to go the traditional route and will be able to earn her degree after three semesters.
"Both my parents are working parents and I'm going to be paying for my own school, so I got two years of free school under my belt, " she said
"And it also gave me the experience of being on a college campus before I [was] to go full swing out of town, I'm going to Bowling Green.”
She also talked about how she hopes that her experience inspires other people.
"It's exciting because I feel like I have not heard, obviously I am the first at Lakeview, but I haven't heard very many stories like mine," she said.
"And I hope that getting the word out there allows for students to follow in my footsteps and kind of build their own path."
Sanika Nalgirkar is a news & entertainment writer at YourTango based in Seattle, Washington. She has a master's degree in Creative Writing from the University of Washington. You can check out some of her writing on her website.