For the past four years, Lloyd Yoo has been slowly making the transition from home school to college. Since he was 15 years old, he has been taking classes and earning college credit at Montgomery County Community College in the Dual Enrollment Program . 

The program allows students 15 and older to take campus-based or online college classes and earn undergraduate credits from MCCC. These credits can then be transferred to a four-year college or university.  

With a 4.0 GPA, Yoo’s hard work is paying off. The now 18-year-old senior from Souderton has been selected for the 2020-2021 All-Pennsylvania Academic Team, which is sponsored by Phi Theta Kappa (PTK), the international honor society for two-year colleges, and the Pennsylvania Commission for Community Colleges. 

This recognition honors an exceptional group of community college students who have achieved academic excellence and demonstrated a commitment to their colleges and communities. To qualify, students must have completed at least 36 credits and have a cumulative GPA of 3.5 or higher. 

“It’s an honor to be one of the people named at Montco,” said Lloyd. “It’s strange to get this award. Especially when there are other people who worked just as hard as me. But I’m honored.” 

Ever since he began taking his first class, Yoo said he has developed a strong connection to MCCC. 

“Honestly I’ve just had a great time. There are wonderful professors and people I will never forget. I probably will always keep in touch with them,” he said. “It’s a great place to just learn.  More recently, I’ve been more active with clubs and student government and it has reinforced the community I built there.”  

Among the activities Yoo has been involved with include serving as the fall 2020 PTK chapter president and a Student Government Association (SGA) senator. Coming to MCCC, Yoo adjusted quickly to his new classroom environment, but said he grew to appreciate the support he received. 

“As we got into more difficult subjects, it got more intense,” he said. “I was lucky to have a professor to lean on at times.” 

Yoo was raised by a single mom and is the youngest of five children. Yoo’s mom, a home care agency supervisor, was born in South Korea and immigrated to the United States when she was in high school. Originally, the family lived in Philadelphia but moved to Souderton in 2008.  

“She homeschooled all five of us, which was crazy for her,” he said. “She was very active in our lives. She wanted us to succeed.” 

Growing up in a home schooled environment, Yoo relied on his mom and his siblings to help him with his classwork early on but soon learned to teach himself new material. 

“It was less ‘here’s the homework you have,’ more ‘here’s the test stuff, go through it and learn it,’” he said. “It was a lot more hands-on and we had a flexible schedule.”  

The family is very musically gifted. Yoo can play several different instruments including the violin, piano, flute, cello, guitar, bass guitar and ukulele and he can sing. For social interaction, the family volunteers in their community through their music ministry, The Joyful Sound of Music, and pre-COVID would play concerts together at various community retirement homes on a monthly basis.  

“When the family gets together to play the running joke is that we’re like the Von Trapp family [from “The Sound of Music”],” said Yoo. 

Yoo is also involved in a youth sports ministry program called “Push the Rock,” during summer and winter breaks. Students in elementary school through the beginning of high school play sports like volleyball, soccer, basketball and baseball together, and counselors are there to coach and also serve as mentors. 

“It’s sort of like a Sunday school with a sports camp,” said Yoo. 

He first got involved with the program as a camper himself and grew to become one of the counselors. “It’s been a great experience,” he said. “As I started coaching, it gave me an opportunity to learn leadership behind other people.” 

This past fall, Yoo finished his courses at MCCC and is currently wrapping up his senior year at home. He’s in the process of applying to four-year institutions to attend in the fall. He’s aiming to study engineering and computer hardware signal processing.  

Yoo said he appreciates the time he spent as a dual enrollment student at MCCC and would recommend it to others like him because it gave him time to grow as a student. 

“It’s definitely given me the opportunity to find out what I want to do in college while still in high school,” he said. “It was a great opportunity for me to get used to the different pace of college. I really enjoyed my time there.”