The Best Path

JT will be wrapping up his homeschooling journey in May. Some days it's hard to believe I've been doing this for so many years, some days it feels like I've been doing it forever. As he reaches the end, many decisions need to be made for his next step.

When May rolls around, JT will have taken all of the general ed classes to meet the requirements for the associates degree he plans to complete through the community college. Because he takes classes at the community college satellite, and not the main campus where they have the recording studio, he has not been able to take any of the music specific courses. What remains amounts to a very light course load for his two years at the main campus. The first two semesters he would have three classes, in the final two semesters, only two, although one is an internship that would take up more time than a regular class. From what we can figure, he can't really double up any semester since everything builds on previous course work. We are planning a trip to the college to verify that. So even though he could physically complete this program faster he won't be able to due to the way it has to be organized. Add to this problem the fact that the main campus is a 90 minute drive from our home. Also, there is no on campus housing. Final problem, JT will only be 17 when the fall semester rolls around, so renting an apartment might be difficult. And honestly, I'm not sure if he's ready to live on his own, even though it's not that far from home.

Our initial idea was to have him take a year off and work to save money before starting the program. This would be nice to allow him a chance to experience life, gain responsibility, and save money for expenses while schooling. A few potential problems with this plan would be that he might never start college if he gets into a routine, it delays the time until he can work in the field he wants, and we're not sure how scholarship money options might be affected. Even with the possible problems, he and I were fairly set on going with this option.

Then I spent some time looking at the class schedule for the fall semester. It turns out all three classes meet on just two days of the week. Driving that 90 minutes felt like too much when it was many days a week; two doesn't seem to bad. Another plus is that the earliest class starts around noon, so he wouldn't even have to drag himself out of bed at the crack of dawn to get there in time. Because of what we have learned, this option is starting to be seriously considered. The biggest concern we have would be if he has a lot of project work, would he need to complete it in the recording studio on campus? If that's the case it might not be doable. I'm planning to set up a campus visit so we can talk about both options and find out what will work best.

For so many years I've been working towards these goals, it feels so strange that we are so close to the end. The far away is suddenly coming near!