Guide to Online Education > Online Education In-Depth > Meet Real Online Students > Angela, M.A. in Liberal Studies
In the past three years Angela has earned an associate’s degree and a bachelor’s degree. She is 18 years old. Feel like an underachiever? Read on. She is currently working toward a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies.
Name: Angela Lipman
Age: 18
Career Goal: To work in print journalism
First College Class: A summer course taken at the age of 11
School: Excelsior College
Target: M.A. Liberal Studies, April 2007
She will receive it in April, well before her 19th birthday. Her 150-page thesis, "How the Supernatural Elements in the Fantasy Genre Further Realistic Themes and Moral Issues" is complete, though she has two more classes to take before her degree is conferred.
It is rather out of sequence, but she seems comfortable doing things in an unorthodox manner. The Excelsior College graduate has been taking classes steadily for about the last eight years; mostly from the comfort of the apartment she shares with her parents where she has lived all her life.
She began attending college over a summer session when she was 11 years old. She took an Intro to Speech course at the Borough of Manhattan Community College. She received an A.
In the fall, she returned to the sixth grade. She easily made the transition back to the world of giggling, lipgloss, and doodles on book covers. But she kept one foot in the college world as well. She began to take classes at night.
Some of her friends wondered if she knew what she was doing, but were not critical. Her teachers were proud of her. Both of her parents were more than enthusiastic supporters. The only Doubting Thomas was the State Education Department.
She had planned to bypass high school altogether and earn her equivalency diploma under the 24-credit rule—a provision that allowed a diploma to be granted to those students who completed 24 college credits appropriately distributed in designated subject areas.
But when she had earned the 24 credits, she was not awarded her diploma. She was deemed too young. Angela, for whom college had become a normal part of her adolescent life, began to understand the significance of what was at stake.
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