From the age of 9 up until I was 18, I was home schooled. I rarely left the house and spent all of my time outside of schoolwork on the internet and only ever socialized with my family members who were all older than me. I had no problem with this because I could do my school work whenever I wanted to and I learned a lot of things while being home schooled. Before starting college, I felt completely prepared for my classes and the work that would come along with them. After all, I was a smart kid and had already scored high on the tests I took. While I did seem to be prepared to deal with the difficulty of the work in college, there were several things I wasn’t prepared to deal with.
1. Friends - Now, all home schooled aren’t as isolated as I was, but I lived in a neighborhood that was completely devoid of children my age. I almost never went outside for any reason, so I wouldn’t have met anyone if there had been other children. So, when I got to college and saw that everyone around me were socializing, I felt totally left out. I wanted friends too, but how the heck was I supposed to make them? Every time I had to talk to anyone, my heart started racing and my throat closed up. Eventually, people broke through my wall of shyness and shared their friendship. Lucky me! Even though I have friends now, I still struggle trying to make new ones.
2. Dating - Just like I looked around and saw groups of friends everywhere, I also saw couples everywhere. It was annoying to see, especially since I had never so much as held hands with another human being in romantic way before and I desperately wanted to experience what these masses of couples were experiencing. Since I had no actual experience with guys… I was single for a long time until some nice guy finally asked me out!
3. Deadlines - Being home schooled, my work was due whenever I finished it. As long as I did it, there was no problem. Being in an actual school is totally different. If a teacher gives me something Monday, it’s mostly likely due before the next class period! I’ve had more than a few times where I didn’t complete an assignment on time because I literally forgot that there was a deadline. Thankfully, I quickly learned to get my work done as soon as possible.
4. Lack of free time - Not being able to use the internet whenever I wanted or watch TV because I had other work to do was painful. I went to having almost unlimited free time to have barely any free time at all. The amount of books I would read in a year dropped from 200 to less than 10. The workload in college was definitely different than that from my home schooled days. Every time I see a book I want to read, I add it to my list of books I’ll never be have time to read.
These are only four ways being home schooled messed me up with, but I still think I came out far better than a lot of public schooled kids did. After all, I did get over all these issues... except the lack of free time, of course.
