From preschool, all the way through high school, I was homeschooled, and I loved it. I have no regrets about being homeschooled and am grateful for the privilege of experiencing such a unique education. My parents gave my siblings and I the option of going to public school in junior high or high school if we wanted, but I chose to stay with homeschooling.

I loved the freedom that homeschooling gave me. We had a wide selection of curriculums to choose from and we could pick the ones that best suited our learning style. I also had the freedom to learn at my own pace and study how I wanted to.

I preferred focusing on just one or two subjects at a time, so I would. I would spend a few weeks going through all the lessons on a subject until I finished it, then I would go to my next subject. It turns out that that’s the same style of learning I am doing with an online college, so I was well prepared.

Homeschooling not only gave me flexibility with how I learned but also when I learned. My schedule was flexible if we decided to take a field trip, no problem. If it was too beautiful of a day to stay inside, no problem, I would take a break from school work and enjoy the fresh air. Sometimes I even liked sitting on my lawn while I did my homework. I could either wake up early and do my school, or sleep in late and do it then.

I could do school on my time and have free time when I needed to. It was an enjoyable and stress-free way to live. My online college is similar, I have a flexible schedule, just as long as I meet my deadlines I can work whenever I want and take breaks when I want.

Through homeschooling, I was able to learn valuable life lessons as well. Since I managed my own schedule and it was my responsibility to get my work done, homeschooling taught me a lot about time management and self-discipline, which helped to prepare me for college.

When I started college, I quickly realized the most important thing to success was time management. Luckily since for most of my homeschooling, I was actually self-taught, reading all the books and doing the assignments on my own, managing myself in college came easily, because I was already self-disciplined.

Through homeschooling, I learned to enjoy learning. In homeschooling, there was much less emphasis on grades and tests, our focus was more on learning the information. If I did bad on a test I just went over the questions again and learned it better. It was all about learning and growing, and failure was okay, it is just another part of learning.

When grades are not the most important thing, you can enjoy the process of learning. I believe homeschooling helped me to be confident in learning, it has become a lifestyle and I love to research things whenever I have questions or anything interests me.

Homeschooling also helped me to grow closer to my family. I was around my siblings and parents all the time. I think this was important because I couldn’t just avoid them all day, I had to learn to get along and live with them, and I did. I enjoyed a lot of quality time with them. I learned to work through problems and relationships with family members and that is a valuable skill to have with any relationship in the future.

Homeschooling taught me countless valuable lessons that I still carry with me today. Many things I learned in homeschooling prepared me for life on my own and for college. It taught me responsibility and creativity and independence and helped me grow into the adult I am today. I’m extremely grateful for that. I’m thankful I got to experience such a unique way of learning.