How does college life compare to home-school? Most of us have a stereotype of home-schoolers as socially awkward kids who wear their pants too high and don't know how to leave mommy. They wear hand-me-down sneakers and sport the rolling backpacks, and wear a smug look as they pass their publicly-schooled peers. They're almost like a distinct class of nerd, a social under class that crops up occasionally, but is generally ignored. Having been home-schooled myself, I come from the other side and will make some comparisons to college life, and how the two are surprisingly similar.
As I grew up I was educated at home, primarily by my mother. I learned from an early age that I had to be self-motivated and disciplined in order to learn anything, because if I didn't put in the effort there was very little my mom could do to force me. I decided to make the most of things, and even though I didn't study exactly the same topics as my friends in school did, I learned the basics of reading, writing, and math, and I felt like it was sufficient.
When I got to BYU, I found out that I could do well in my lasses by just doing the exact same thing I did in home-school. While those around me were complaining about how much harder college was than high school, I just quietly got my work done and studied concepts till I knew them. I was already used to not having a strict schedule and rules to follow, so I didn't feel like I had to stay up late or waste time with TV shows or experiment with "new-found" freedoms, I'd already seen where that goes and I realized what I was at school for.
I feel like home-school is really an extension of college life, but in reverse. It gives personal responsibility to kids when their younger, and it can give a great head start to being successful in college. I don't vouch for all homeschoolers, I find it just as weird when I pass the kid clacking along the walkway with his rolling backpack and t-shirt tucked in, but there's merit in giving personal responsibility to younger people so they can make independent choices sooner.
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