“It felt like walking into a room where 25 other people knew a secret that I didn’t.”
For many of us, public education was the norm. Our everyday school experience consisted of heading into a large brick building, greeted each morning by hundreds of other kids and a variety of teachers ready to fill our brains with knowledge. We quickly got used to being surrounded by other students and adults and becoming socialized in a way that prepared us for the transition to college. There is a particular group, however, that had a unique experience in their transition from their primary and secondary education to the college campus: homeschooled students.
(Photo credits: Abigael Johnson)
Abigael Johnson, a Parkland College student, grew up living a homeschool life. Johnson said, “I am the sixth of eight kids and all of us were homeschooled through high school. One thing I think a lot of people don’t necessarily know or understand about homeschooling is that the… intensity, shall we say, of what a curriculum or an average school day looks like is on a continuum of sorts.” She continued, “On one end are the kids who had as intense a schedule as public-school kids, with periods and co-ops and everything. On the other end, closer to what my schooling was, falls more under the classification of ‘unschooling’ where we spent a lot of time outside playing around our Urbana house or going to the store or the park literally any time or day.”
The transition to college can be a tricky thing to navigate for any student, let alone a self-proclaimed unschooled student who had less traditional structure. The change of pace and different environments can be overwhelming, especially without the proper preparation. For homeschooled students, the tricky transition is intensified and often leaves them in a state of social and routine shock. On transitioning, Johnson said, “I didn’t think I could do it at first— it was really scary and intimidating to move into a context where almost every other person has been in this routine for roundabout twelve years; their whole lives have been in a classroom— I didn’t step foot into a school building during actual operating hours until I walked into my algebra class at age 20. It felt like walking into a room where 25 other people knew a secret that I didn’t.”
A major instrument in the successful transition from high school to college is our systems of support. Whether we feel prepared or not for college after we graduate, having help and support from family and friends can make the whole process much smoother. Johnson explained, “I was not prepared for many of the challenges I faced to get here to Parkland and into college. But, in many other ways, I believe my life prepared me better for college than many others who experienced typical schooling. Thankfully, I had people around me to encourage me to take scary steps. The hardest part was probably persevering— any time I hit a road bump, or something got delayed for whatever reason, or I had to figure out a midterm or final for the first time, I didn’t want to push to get here. I was getting tired of fighting for something that was completely unknown to me.”
To all the homeschool kids out there, no matter how you’re feeling during your transition to college, you can take comfort in the fact that you are not alone; and your feelings are valid. Johnson offered hope and advice for anyone dealing with the daunting jump and said, “Although I wouldn’t trade my homeschooling for anything because it helped shape me into who I am, I love college, I love my instructors, and I love learning all this cool stuff. You might feel like a fish out of water in a college environment right now like I did, but I’m pretty sure every other person you will pass in the hallway will also be making it all up as they go, their accomplishments are not your failures, and your accomplishments and failures do not define you.”
To those of us looking for a way to better support our classmates or students from a homeschool background, Johnson said, “Please be patient with us and any potentially strange questions we have. There might be a lot that we simply have no context for, but we are kind of an awesome group of people.”