Photo provided Two days before her 38th birthday, Strunk rang a bell at McDowell Education Center in celebration of obtaining her high school equivalency diploma, something she credited to McDowell’s flexible learning environment
When Christine Strunk was 18 years old, she was living on her own, working in a factory and dropped out of Shelbyville High School due a life filled with uncertainties and hurdles.
This time was memorialized on the cover of a 2006 edition of Time Magazine, “Dropout Nation,” which showed her posed up against some lockers, looking into the lens with both hands in her pockets. The magazine issue chronicled barriers students faced at Shelbyville and nationwide to finishing high school.
Almost 20 years later, two days before her 38th birthday, Strunk was ringing a bell at McDowell Education Center in celebration of obtaining her high school equivalency diploma, something she credited to McDowell’s flexible learning environment and a determination she made to follow-through to serve as an example to her three children.
“I was a struggling girl that had dreams of finishing my education and I felt like the world was stacked against me at that time,” Strunk said of what she sees when she looks at that cover today. “I just did not have support.”
Strunk had tried to go back and get her GED before, trying several different avenues, but it was difficult to do some while taking care of a family and working.
She would drive past McDowell all the time, she said, but one day decided to see what it offered.
“I keep seeing it— maybe they’ve got some type of program that I could do.’”
She saw they had both day and night classes, and offered online options, allowing students to go at their own pace.
“Then I got in there and realized how great the teachers were, and I was like, ‘I’m going to do this. This is it.’”
On Wednesdays, Strunk would work eight hours and then take classes at McDowell for three hours after. On Monday and Tuesday, when she worked from the morning until the afternoon, she would take classes for a couple of hours when she was off. And at night before bed some days, she would slot in an hour to focus on a particular subject online when in-person class wasn’t an option.
Between mid-August and early October, she was able to finish “with a lot of support from my husband and my oldest daughter.”
“They helped do dinners and help with the youngest kid’s homework,” Strunk said. “It was tough, but I knew it was temporary. It wasn’t going to last forever— I knew I could get through it.”
Now Strunk plans to pursue her Certified Clinical Medical Assistant (CCMA) certification starting in January and perhaps later look to get a Qualified Medication Aide (QMA) certification and eventually become a registered nurse.
“I think that’s what steered me away from education for so long, because I had such a negative experience with it (in high school),” Strunk said. “That’s why I was so skeptical of reaching out, but for some reason, McDowell stuck out like a sore thumb and something just led me to it.”
“The people there (at McDowell) are so, so nice and kind. Nobody pressures you. They don’t make you feel like you’re in a rush. They’re so uplifting and positive. It is a breath of fresh air.”
Asked what advice she would give to someone thinking about going back to get their high school degree, Strunk said to not give up.
“It is never too late, you’re never too old. You’re never nothing,” she said. “As long as you put your mind to it and you are dedicated, you will succeed.”
