Tinlee Shepherd won’t turn 18 until August, but she is already a couple of years ahead of many of her Westville High School classmates.
On Sunday, Shepherd celebrated her high school graduation, and on Friday night, she will be receiving her associate’s degree from Danville Area Community College, being one of seven dual-credit graduates this year and the only one to achieve a 4.0 grade-point average. She says her achievements are a long time in the making.
“I definitely have been working toward this since I was a freshman in high school, so it feels good to know that my work has paid off, four years down the line,” she says.
Shepherd says she accomplished her dual degrees by taking classes over the past three summers at DACC. Westville allowed her to take two in-person college classes and one online class per semester, and by this year, she was focusing solely on classes at DACC.
Another challenge the past year has been COVID-19, but Shepherd says the college has been good at keeping students informed about the changes when they needed to occur.
“I never felt like I was just left out and didn’t know what was going on,” she says. “They always kept me in the loop. I always knew what was going on.”
Following her graduation, Shepherd will be attending the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to work on a bachelor’s degree in human development and family studies. She hopes to eventually be a licensed marriage and family therapist.
Students and parents who are interested in learning more about dual credit and dual enrollment opportunities at DACC should contact the academic advisement and counseling department at 217-443-8750, as well as speaking with their high school guidance counselor.
