by Kimberly Harjes

Created on: June 20, 2009   Last Updated: June 28, 2009

Homeschooling is often the topic of heated debate, and it's easy to understand how both sides can be supported passionately. Most people against homeschooling tend to focus on the socialization aspects, arguing that homeschooled individuals lack social skills necessary to succeed later on in life. However, as with any argument about schooling methodology, the education a child is receiving should remain forefront in people's minds. And it is with this in mind that I say, yes, students going through public school are better prepared for college.

Even in a small college, class sizes can be upwards of 200 students. Especially during freshman year, when you are taking mostly introductory level courses that fulfill the school's general education requirements, the prominent teaching style is lecture-based. This means that each student must take the initiative to: a) show up to class, b) stay focused during the lecture, c) be able to distinguish important facts to write down in notes, and d) be able to study and otherwise prepare for their classes largely without help from the professors. These are all huge adjustments for anyone starting out in college, but it proves especially difficult for those accustomed to having the personal, one-on-one interactions homeschooling provides. The discipline required to maintain academic integrity in these classes is difficult, and at the very least, those going through public, or even private, schools are better equipped to handle these obstacles due to a similar (albeit scaled-down) setup in a high school classroom.

And, yes, socialization is also important in a college setting. Coming from someone who had a horrendous roommate freshman year (she purposely locked me out of the room while I was in the middle of writing a term paper), the importance of being able to deal with a roommate or classmate you don't get along with can sometimes be just as integral to a successful college education as is academic integrity. Public schools, for better or worse, offer students a diverse population and the opportunity to learn how to work with other people, regardless of how well/horribly you get along with those group members. While proponents of homeschooling claim that those homeschooled gain the same experience through activities such as sports and boy/girl scouts and the like, there is simply no comparison between these activities and assignments that your grades (and therefore future) depend on.

Of course, this argument cannot be applied to every single homeschooled individual or every student going through public school, but it is my firm belief that, no matter how many benefits supporters of homeschooling claim it offers, public school lends a greater sense of what the "real world" is like, and therefore gives them more experience to utilize while in college.

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