UC IT student is set to graduate one year after completing high school

One year later, the soon-to-be University of Cincinnati alum is ready to move the tassel once again as he completes undergraduate studies for UC's Bachelor of Science in Information Technology program.

During his time at West Clermont, Sweet took advantage of Ohio’s College Credit Plus (CCP) program, which allows public school students in the state to take no-cost classes for college credit. CCP is extremely popular and serves as a foundation for programs such as the School of Information Technology’s (SoIT) Early IT program. But, driven by a love for tech and a relentless work ethic, Sweet fast-tracked his higher education experience in an uncommon and notable way.

“I got my start playing the Xbox 360 and stuff way back in the day,” says Sweet, explaining his early exposure to tech. “I eventually grew into wanting to know how these things worked, just tinkering. I had a lot of free time, so I would goof around on computers, and it slowly grew into something I wanted to do professionally one day.”

When Sweet was in eighth grade, his pastor at Horizon Community Church suggested Sweet and his family should explore CCP, which his kids had done, as a way to get a jump on a college education. “He likes to study and figure out the best way to do things,” says Sweet. “So he knew how to do that process and walked my parents through it.” 

During his sophomore year of high school, Sweet started taking classes to earn his BSIT on the Data Technologies track. Though he was aware that his school offered classes in the Early IT program, which teaches the first year of a BSIT degree in high schools, Sweet preferred to take CCP courses directly from UC at his own accelerated clip. “I took mostly all asynchronous, so I could do it at my own pace, which has kind of always been my flow,” he says. “I was the kid in high school who got done with the assignment in 15 minutes and had to sit there for five days. So I liked the asynchronous pacing, being able to just do the thing and be done with it and move on.”

Which is not to say that Sweet didn’t eventually take in-person classes on campus. Once he got his license, he did just that and found that, despite his younger age, he felt in place on the bustling uptown campus; by the time he reached his junior year, his studies were exclusively CCP classes.

“There were long stretches of time where I didn't go to the high school at all,” he says, recounting that one of his last high school classes was 10th grade band. “I’d have to come back to grab a form or something, but that was pretty much it.”

Over the past couple of years, Sweet has also worked a job at Horizon Community Church, a role that started out as a video/live production internship that counted toward his UC graduation requirements, then morphed into part time and, ultimately, became a full-time production specialist position. “I kept pressing and pressing, and they were loving the work that I was doing, so I just kept getting more and more hours,” he explains. “It eventually just blossomed into me going full-time at the start of last year.”

In his current role with the church, Sweet handles media production tasks such as video work, sound and lighting.

While Sweet describes his academic journey as a “nose-to-the-grindstone” experience, his life really isn’t all work with no play. He’s passionate about playing guitar and making music, and was involved with the School of Rock educational company for a handful of years. “That's a really cool program,” he says, explaining how School of Rock creates rock bands for kids to participate in. “I've gotten the chance to play live a lot of places, and I played in their house band last year, which is their top of the top. We played probably 40 shows last year around the Cincinnati area.”   

Mere weeks away from graduating college, Sweet’s not totally sure what career path he’ll pursue with his BSIT (and, with a job he enjoys, he doesn’t have to be yet). While a role in data seems like the obvious choice, he’s open to exploring other career opportunities, too, feeling that his UC degree has prepared him for a wide range of work. 

“I picked up a good amount of other skills during the degree,” he says. “I definitely think the coursework itself had a lot of real-world application. It was a lot of like, you are a data analyst at X, solve this problem. I feel like that'll be helpful in my work later in life.”

Looking back on the last four years, Sweet is grateful to UC for both the instruction he’s received and the assistance provided along the way by the university’s SoIT community. “UC was very helpful with the CCP program. The counselors were very easy to work with and very helpful,” he says. “I always hear horror stories of college counselors, but I've not had that experience at UC.”

Featured image at top: Gage Sweet smiles as he prepares to graduate from UC one year after his high school graduation. Photo/provided