english final project

The speaker, Kate Guy, discusses her personal experience with homeschooling and how it has benefited her. She highlights the freedom and flexibility it offers compared to traditional public school. Kate explains that being responsible for her own schedule has prepared her for college, where she won't have professors constantly reminding her of deadlines. She also interviews her friend, Mikayla, who shares a similar experience and emphasizes the importance of being organized and self-motivated. Kate mentions the advantages of taking college classes while homeschooling and how it has helped her transition to higher education. She addresses concerns about homeschoolers' social readiness for college, noting that while some may struggle, many homeschoolers actively seek out social interactions through jobs, internships, and other activities. Kate concludes by discussing the increase in homeschooling numbers, attributed in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the various reasons why families c Hi, guys, my name is Kate Guy, and on this podcast, I'm talking a little bit about homeschooling, why kids choose to homeschool, and also how it prepares them for college or if they're not going to be prepared at all. So I'll start with me. I am in high school, I'm a junior about to go into senior year, and I have homeschooled all throughout high school, and personally, it has been the best decision for me because I have free time, I have flexibility on my schedule, on working, on choosing what I want to do later in life, and also what I want to do now. I get to just explore those options without the stress of being in public school, sitting in class for seven hours a day, and being on someone else's schedule, which is one thing I love, is that I get to be on my own schedule, make my own schedule, but I also have to hold myself accountable, which most people don't realize, they're just like, oh, homeschoolers are on a free schedule, they can do whatever they want, which is sometimes true, yes, I get to go to the beach on days that I don't have as much work, but I also do have to make sure that I'm getting those classes done, that I'm being responsible, because no one's here to hold me accountable. I don't have a teacher to tell me day in and day out, get this assignment done, I have to make sure I do that, which is amazing, honestly, for getting ready for college, because in college, I'm not going to have a professor that's going to tell me, get this done, like if I have something late, I'm not going to get full credit for that, or I'm not going to get any credit, just little things like that. And I was able to bring in one of my friends for this assignment, she is 30 years old, graduated from Azusa Pacific with a kinesiology major, and homeschooled all the way out through high school, so she agreed to talk to me a little bit today, and just give me her point of view on what homeschooling did for her, and how she felt prepared or not prepared for college. Personally, which sounds very similar to you, which is great, I also was so busy working, dancing, taking classes, very involved in church and leadership, and had so many things, and being in charge of your own schedule is super helpful, because then you transition to college, and you're already experienced with college classes, you have to be on top of your schedule, you don't have the same teacher telling you every day, like, hey, make sure this is turned in tomorrow, hey, make sure you do this, because you're already organized and on top of your schedule, that was an easy transition for me, whereas my roommates and other people, I remember them being like, oh my gosh, I don't know how to do this, because it was kind of all new to them, they had never determined their own schedule before, in a way, so that was an easy transition, because if you're organized, you're on top of things, managing your schedule, class schedule, what you're turning in, whatnot, you'll be so fine. One thing that has helped me with my homeschooling journey, and just this time, has been taking classes at MiraCosta, which is a community college here, which allows me to get that high school credit, so I get high school and college credits, so that by the time I graduate, I'm ahead of the game, I have my GE classes done, and I just have that knowledge, and I sort of know where I stand, and also, I know how those classes are set up, so it's not a big surprise to me, sort of like Michaela was saying, is that she was just more prepared than most of her public school friends, because they always had someone watching their every move, watching what they were doing, make sure they were caught up, but the dual credit has been incredible, because I've been able to explore different subjects that I might not have available to me if I went to public school. And then also, I must say, taking college classes or higher level prep classes in high school, going into college, I was like, this is really easy, like you already have, you're already good at studying on your own, and doing all your own things, so the transition was really fine. I was able to talk more with Michaela about kinesiology majors, college, all of that, which was very great for me to hear, because I want to go to a four-year college, I want to study kinesiology, I want to do all these things, but I won't go into that today, because that's not along these lines, but back to homeschooling is, as I was doing my research, I started to find just different reasons why homeschoolers might be ahead of others, or why they might be behind. And one of the biggest questions I found was, are homeschoolers going to be ready for college socially? Educationally, yes, because homeschoolers are very, like, adamant, they're very focused on school, they want to make sure we have good grades, just always going to be asking questions, which is amazing, and in college, that's so important, because asking questions is something a lot of people don't know how to do, because they're scared that asking that question is going to be stupid, which is not the case, because if you don't ask that question, you might never get it answered, and then you'll be stuck, and you don't know where to go from there. But the other thing I found is socially, are homeschoolers going to be ready for college socially? Which, the different research and articles that I found talked about just how homeschoolers are, like, can be sort of known as, like, weird, not social, whatever, which can be true for certain people, everyone's different, but I also found that homeschoolers tend to go out and get jobs earlier, or do internships, or just find other ways to get out in the world, because we don't have those five days a week, seven hours each day at school sitting with our friends, so we go out and find other ways to do it, or travel, or just find new ways to explore and just be social. So, that, honestly, it does depend on the person for that one, but I do think that being ready for college isn't a big concern for homeschoolers, because the educational part and the social part should not be a huge issue. One thing I did not think about, though, is that going from homeschooling to college is, a lot of people do go far for college, like move out of state or at least a few hours from home, and I was talking to my Kayla about this, and she was saying that... I personally had a hard time being away from home, which I was shocked. I was so excited to go to school, and so ready, so excited. I had so many friends who were older than me in college, and I was like, this is going to be great. Along with what Mikayla was saying is, a very common thing is just people move away from home and then don't know what to do because they're far from their parents, their friends, their family, and everything that makes them comfortable. So, that is a big concern with homeschoolers, but, I mean, again, it really does depend on the person and the family. And then aside from just moving away from home, the college part of it all is that in the last five to ten years, homeschooling numbers have spiked. It is the largest growing schooling option in the U.S., and I think that's just because through COVID, everyone was forced to be at home, forced to go online and try these new ways of schooling, and for some people, it worked great. Some people, they hated it and had to go back to school, and for me personally, I wasn't sure how I felt about it. The whole online thing, at that time, I was in middle school, so I really loved being around my friends, so it was hard for me then, but once I got to high school, I sort of saw how people had changed, how it had gotten, the friend groups got clicky, it just wasn't what I wanted. So, I started homeschooling mainly because my family was going to travel that year, and so I had to homeschool. But when we got back from that year of travel, I realized that homeschooling really is what fit me best, and it gave me the time to get a job, to make that money, and to really have this time to be close to my family, get prepared for college, and just think ahead a little bit, which is what I like to do. I like to think ahead and have a little bit of a plan, but it wasn't always like that for some kids. Some kids really needed that time during COVID to be home, to start homeschooling, and to realize, hey, this is what I need for myself. And so I think that after COVID, numbers really spiked because people were just staying home, whether it was for sports, to have more time for sports, or whether their parents didn't really want them to be around other kids so much because of the virus that was going on. There's so many different reasons for it, but my main question that I was asking is, are homeschoolers going to be prepared for college? Why are so many kids switching to homeschooling? And just through that question, I got to research a lot, got to learn a lot about myself and about just numbers and how and why people are switching, and it was amazing to bring Kayla into this, talk about her story a little bit, how it worked for her because she is a few years ahead of me. She's graduated college. She's done the whole homeschool thing. She has a degree. It was just great to hear someone else's perspective about this and just how it's affected her and how she's still doing great. She loves homeschooling. So this just gave me an opportunity to learn more about homeschooling and about the people that do it. So thank you guys for listening. I hope you enjoyed. I hope this was helpful, and I hope you learned a little bit just like I did.