By Molly Lovell

Staff Writer

    Students who drop out of high school can get back on their feet again. Michael Schell of Saco is proof.

    The Southern Maine Community College student was
recently named Maine’s New Century Scholar. The New Century Scholar
program honors 50 community college students from across the United
States.

    Schell beat out 13 other people to represent Maine.

Two years ago when Schell decided he wanted to go to college he set his
sights on a four-year university. He applied to a handful of them,
including the University of Southern Maine, expecting to be accepted by
at least one.

    Schell thought that because he had his General
Equivalency Diploma and also served in the Air Force for two years that
it would be enough to convince the institutions to let him in.

    “Many colleges didn’t take my application seriously,” Schell wrote in an essay.

    Not one of the universities accepted him fearing
that he wouldn’t be able to handle a full course load and almost all of
them recommended he spend a couple of years at a community college to
fine tune his academic skills before transferring to their university.

    “It didn’t feel too good,” he said, adding that he
at first thought attending a community college would be a waste of his
time.

    With no other choice but to accept the hand he had
been dealt, Schell enrolled in the liberal arts program at Southern
Maine Community College.

    Two years later he has a 4.0 grade point average and even tutors other students in math and science.

    “I think it’s really cool,” said SMCC’s Dean of Students, Diane Vickrey, of Schell’s accomplishments.

    She said the New Century Scholar award will be something that future employers will definitely notice.

    One of the award’s sponsors is Phi Theta Kappa
International Honor Society. It is the largest honor society in
American higher education and has 1,200 chapters.

    “This is surprising that I’ve done as well as I have considering the past,” he said.

    Schell dropped out during his senior year of high
school in Florida. His father was in the military and so the family
moved around quite a bit.

    “We were getting ready to move again and I didn’t
want to because I had wanted to graduate high school there,” Schell
said.

    He ended up staying in Florida and working full-time
to support himself after his parents moved and ironically never
graduated with the class he was so intent on staying with.

    After his time in the military and spending a number
of years living in the southern portion of the United States Schell
eventually made his way up to Maine and got a job working at Unum
Provident.

    “It was a good job but it wasn’t what I wanted to do
for the rest of my life. It was probably about the best job I could get
being a high school drop out,” he said.

    Even though it was a good job, it didn’t satisfy Schell.

    “My only other alternative was to go back to school,” he said.

    Schell was nervous that he wouldn’t be able to cut
it at the college level. “It had been 10 years since I had done
anything really challenging,” he said.

    With much support from his wife Kelly, Schell did
extremely well and will soon be transferring to the University of Maine
at Orono to major in electrical engineering.

    Fairchild Semiconductor would be his ideal job after graduating, he said.

    Schell doesn’t think everyone needs to pursue a
college degree. He said it’s still possible for a person to make a good
living without one.

    He also recommends community colleges.

    “It provided me with a valuable transition period .
. . I feel fully prepared for whatever lies ahead,” he said.