EH senior earns over 50 college credits

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Eastern Hancock class of 2022 graduate Nick Potts earned 51 college credits during high school.

EASTERN HANCOCK — He really had no desire to earn as many college credits as he did. Nick Potts just liked taking classes that challanged him.

When the Eastern Hancock senior walks during the Royals’ graduation ceremony Saturday morning (today) he’ll leave the school with 51 college credits. Not bad for a student who already has a trade skill job lined up and never planned to go to college.

“I had no idea I had that many college credits,” Nick said. “I knew I had a decent handful, but I’m kind of blown away with how many I actually earned and was kind of shocked when they told me.”

Nick started out pretty early in late middle and early high school taking dual credit agricultural classes and was hooked. So he kept taking as many advanced classes as he could that furthered his skills and knowledge on topics that he enjoyed.

“The credits just started coming with all the classes that I took, so I just kept going,” he said.

Toward the end of his sophomore year, Nick said he started to realize he was stacking up the college credits and would be earning more during his junior and senior years. That prompted him to formulate a plan.

“I knew I wasn’t planning on going to college, but I thought, if I can get as many credits as I can, if I ever decide to go to college, most of them will transfer over,” he said.

Nick was involved in several welding classes at the New Castle/Ivy Tech campus and took as many dual college credit classes as they offered.

“I did all of those and tried my best to get good grades,” Nick said.

He’s only nine hours away from earning an associate degree, something he now says he wants to do even though he’s starting a full-time job next week with Indiana Automotive Equipment in Maxwell.

Nick will be the new man on the floor Monday, June 6, just two days after high school graduation.

“My plan is to work for about a year, year-and-a-half and pocket up some money and then finish out that last semester of college classes so I can get those nine credits,” he said. “I’m going to work around my work schedule, maybe even take some summer classes if I’m able.”

He plans to earn the associate degree in welding or learn what is needed to work on a pipeline or in the iron field.

“I’ve also considered becoming a journeyman lineman, working on powerlines,” he said.

Nick, who has always been a hands-on, go-getter kind of student, said he feels fortunate to have gone to a high school where educators helped him learn so many great skills while still being a teenager.

“Most of the dual credit ag classes I took were hands-on-based learning,” Nick said. “I liked figuring out how to assemble things or learn how to make things grow.”

He also credits his parents, who instilled a great work ethic in him at a young age, teaching him that anything worth having is worth working for.

“My mom and dad were kind of impressed with all my college credits, and my sister is a little jealous because she’s actually going to college in the medical field and didn’t have as many credits as I earned,” he said.

Nick couldn’t help but laugh when he thinks about all he has learned while in high school, including landscapings skills, something he had no knowledge of before jumping into an advanced gardening class.

“I learned a lot about specific plants, how to properly plant them, how to water them and make sure they grow, and I also learned things like how to make sidewalks and things like that,” he said.

Nick likes to refer to himself as a “motorhead” kind of guy who loves expensive hobbies like building and working on cars. He said his high school years were good to him because he was able to make the most of his time taking classes that really mattered and intrigued him.