Rome High School

“It's very exciting. There wasn't like a plan that I've always had or anything. It is also a lot of security for me and my parents,” Jones says. “So I'm glad that I get to do that because it's definitely a lot cheaper.”

It’s not surprising that Jones got the degree, but when you see her long list of activities and extracurriculars, the question quickly becomes, “How did she find the time?”

“When I'm at school, I like to focus my time on my schoolwork. A lot of people, like my parents, didn't even believe me. They thought I was lying when I told them, ‘I do not have homework,’ I don't do work at home,” she says. “When I'm in school, I will focus on my schoolwork so that when I'm outside, I can focus on having fun with my friends and doing all the extracurriculars and clubs that I like to do.”

While it’s obvious Jones spent lots of time working in her high school and college classes, she has a myriad of activities outside of the classroom as well.

She works as an Ambassador at Georgia Highlands College, giving campus tours and facilitating events. Natalia teaches a weekly Spanish class at East Central Elementary School to kindergarten students. She has served as class president for both her sophomore and junior years. She is on the Superintendent's Student Advisory Council, an ambassador at Rome High, and participated in the Rome Chamber’s Emerge Program.

Along with that, she is an avid dancer at Baird Ballet and is a member of Grand Finale, Rome High School’s award-winning show choir.

Jones now gets a chance to focus on her senior year, but she will also continue to prep for college and beyond.

“I just got into Berry, so I will be doing joint enrollment at Berry next year,” she says. “Hopefully, I’ll be taking more psychology classes. It'll be a lot more relaxed than the past few years have been because these are classes to help get me acquainted with what I want to do.”

Jones has plans to become a psychiatrist and maybe a college professor as well because she has seen her parents, who both teach for Rome City Schools, passion and love for teaching.

“I would like to first be a psychiatrist and be in the field. But I've seen my parents' passion for teaching. So I definitely would consider it. I’d love to teach and be a professor one day as well,” she says.

While Jones handled dual enrollment with relative ease, she does say it can be tough.

“It can be difficult. I've taken in-person college classes over the summer, and those were a lot less difficult because you get to be face-to-face. It can be difficult not being able to interact face-to-face with a teacher and having to rely on email and other ways of communicating,” she says. “I feel like after a while, you kind of get the hang of it, so I have loved it. I would totally recommend it to anybody that was trying to get ahead, and it also boosts your GPA just a little bit, so I've loved it.”

And now, she gets a chance to enjoy her upcoming senior year at Rome High. When asked about her favorite part of high school, Jones talks about several things.

“I just love all the people that you can meet. It's been a really good experience to meet so many different people and get to know different perspectives,” she says. “At Rome High School, you get to meet so many different people, so I've loved that and getting to compete with them and all the different fun things.”