Montgomery College helps students get a jump on their 4-year degrees

Ylealynn Datuin, a Montgomery County high school senior, will have two commencement ceremonies to attend this spring. She’ll be graduating college before she graduates high school.

That’s because in June, Datuin’s graduating from her home school, Clarksburg High School. But this week, she’ll graduate from Montgomery College with her associate degree in bioscience.

Datuin is among the roughly 400 students graduating in Montgomery College’s dual enrollment program that allows students to earn their high school diploma while taking college-level courses toward their associate’s degrees.

Akima Rogers, director of academic initiatives at Montgomery College, said Datuin “actually spent her entire junior and senior year of high school as a full-time college student. She took all of her classes at the Rockville campus of Montgomery College, and she earned the college credit, which also provided her high school credit, and so she was fully immersed into the college culture for those two years.”

Datuin said, in many ways, the early college dual enrollment program provides the best of both worlds for students.

They can work toward their associate degree while still in high school, and not lose that connection to high school friends.

“For example, during my 11th grade year, I was in theater” at her home school, Clarksburg High, “while I was also taking MC classes,” she said.

Being able to participate in extracurricular activities at her...