May 11, 2021
By Bob Fowler
Roane State staff writer
Amelia Terry is on a fast track to academic success. Terry, 18, is the only student at Oneida High School to complete Roane State’s Middle College curriculum this academic year.
She earned her diploma from the 400-student high school and an associate degree from the college at the same time.
Terry said she enjoyed the Middle College program and took a different route than the conventional one. As a high school junior, she was in Roane State’s Early College program – where students can earn the equivalent of a freshman year of college credits – and then stepped it up.
By taking three summer classes at Roane State between her junior and senior years in high school, she caught up with Middle College requirements and compiled the rest of the needed college credits via Roane State virtual classes as a high school senior.
Typically, high-achieving students enroll in Middle College while they’re sophomores. As juniors and seniors, they go to one of the community college’s nine campuses in the mornings and return to their respective high schools in the afternoons. That way, they can graduate from high school and attain an associate degree simultaneously.
“I wanted to fast-track it,” Terry said. “I liked Middle College. I found it very doable.”
Terry said standout Roane State educators included Associate Professor Andy Anderson, who was her teacher for two psychology classes, adjunct educator Jodi Jeffers, who taught algebra, and Sharon Wilson, director of Roane State’s Scott County campus, who taught speech.
Terry drove to the nearby campus in Huntsville for those classes.
She’s been accepted at Emory & Henry College in Emory, Virginia, and intends to seek a bachelor’s degree in psychology. Long-term, she’s considering a career as a clinical psychologist.
She’s the daughter of David and Natasha Terry of Oneida.
Her advice for area high school students considering either Early College or Middle College: “Just plan ahead and do it.”
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