OAKLAND – Ella Buck is a senior at Messalonskee High School.

Messalonskee student charts her path

OAKLAND – Ella Buck is a senior at Messalonskee High School.  Since age eight, Ella has known she wanted to be a nurse.  When Ella was a sophomore, just 14 years old, she took her first “college” class through the Early College Program. This program allows high school students to take courses not offered at their high school, through colleges/universities.  Students can take up to 12 credits a year for free. With a passion for nursing, Ella began taking general education courses required for a degree in the field. She took online courses from four Maine community colleges (KVCC, YCCC, EMMC, AND SMCC). More recently, she has taken Nursing classes through the University of Southern Maine, where she has been accepted into the Nursing program for the 2024-2025 school year.

Ella will graduate from Kennebec Valley Community College with an associate’s degree in general studies on May 11.  According to the college, she will be the first high school student in the school’s history to receive an associate’s degree before graduating high school. She will graduate with a 4.0.

Ella will have completed approximately 71 college credits, taking classes year-round for the past couple of years.  Because of the agreement between Maine’s Community Colleges and its universities, all of Ella’s college credits transferred allowing her to attend USM in September as a third-year college student.

If all of this was not enough, while Ella was taking her high school classes and college courses, she played sports and has been working at the Maine Veterans Home for 10 months now.  She began with MVH in June 2023 where she enrolled in a CNA certification program.  In August, she received her certification and has been working per diem on the weekends at MVH.

Ella chose not to take AP classes at her high school, as she wanted to take classes that pertained to nursing.  Messalonskee only weights AP classes, so none of her college classes were weighted.  As a result, despite having a 99.4 GPA, she will not graduate in the top 10 of her class.  Initially, this was hard for Ella to accept, but she knew she wanted to take classes that interested her and would help her achieve her end goal of becoming a nurse.  As a high school student taking a non-traditional path, she had to overcome many obstacles along the way.  She was determined and never gave up.

Ella does not like being in the spotlight. She does not seek recognition or attention.  However, by sharing her story, she may help others see that hard work and determination do pay off, and even more importantly … it is ok to deviate from the norm and chart your own path.