By JOYANNA LOVE/ Senior Staff Writer

Four Chilton County High School students have been named to the UA Early College Director’s List based on their participation in the fall 2017 semester.

To qualify students must be enrolled in the UA Early College program and have a 3.6 GPA.

CCHS juniors Lauren Hay, Jack Parnell, Keilan Peoples and Cade Williams took Introduction to Anthropology through UA Early College.

Hay said she was glad to be able to accomplish the requirements for the Director’s List. Peoples said it gave him a sense of accomplishment.

Williams said he was proud to be named to the list, saying he always tries to do his best in everything he does.

The Intro to Anthropology course appealed to Williams because it did not require proctored testing. CCHS had not been approved as a testing site, so this would have meant traveling to an approved site. Williams said CCHS has since received approval to be an UA Early College testing site.
Peoples said a representative from the program recommended the students take an elective course because they are taking AP classes that could count for college core classes.

The course was completed online using video lectures from the professor and completing online quizzes and tests. The course did have a textbook, however. Parnell said the course helped him develop good study habits. Hay described the program as a way to “get some credits out of the way,” while still in high school. Parnell said he was interested in the program as a “way to prepare and see what college classes would be like.”

Peoples said he enjoyed learning about other cultures and how things had developed over time.
“It was really more like an in-depth history class, and I liked that,” Parnell said.
Parnell recommended the program to any students that were interested in getting some college credit out of the way.

The college course was more involved than some of their other classes. Hay said the required reading for the class had been time consuming. Peoples said doing well in the class required sacrificing time outside of normal school hours to devote to extra homework.

“Those readings would take forever sometimes, like three or four hours sometimes,” Peoples said.

Williams said he had to work on it for three of four hours each weekend to complete the course.

Each of the students had taken a class over the summer introducing them to the format of the UA Early College classes. The Intro to Anthropology class was the first fully online course any of them had taken.

Parnell plans to attend Auburn University and major in economics. Peoples plans to attend the University of Alabama and major in accounting with the hopes of working in federal law enforcement. Hay plans on attending the University of Alabama and majoring in biomedical engineering. Williams hopes to attend Vanderbilt University and is considering majoring in biology.

Williams is now taking an Early College Introduction to Philosophy, but the other students are not taking an Early College course this semester.