A homeschool student who began attending college at age 14 is gearing up to complete her bachelor’s degree, graduating from the University of the Pacific this fall.
Abigail Kyles, 19, is a college student from California and the daughter of Melissa Wheeler, 44, who directs a homeschool resource center.
Born and raised in Bakersfield, Ms. Kyles was homeschooled through high school, which enabled her to begin attending Bakersfield College, a junior college, when she was just 14. This made her a college freshman and high school freshman at the same time.
“She graduated high school at 16 years old and is now finishing up her four-year degree at University of the Pacific,” the proud mom told The Epoch Times.
Although many public schools offer dual enrollment, they do not allow students to take a heavier college course load the way Ms. Kyles did. Ms. Wheeler believes homeschooling was the secret to her daughter’s success, allowing the teen to take all the college courses she took and graduate at a young age.
“She has three more classes to take in the fall,” Ms. Wheeler said. “So technically, she won’t be completely done with her four-year degree until December.”
Life as a Teen College Student
Ms. Wheeler says they approached her daughter’s college journey strategically. Knowing that the teen’s desired major would likely change over time, Ms. Wheeler told her to focus on her general education requirements first. Over time, Ms. Kyles chose a major: political science.Needless to say, the college journey was not without its challenges. Ms. Kyles says she often felt intimidated due to the age difference in her classes.
“There’s like 30-year-olds in the same class as me, you know, I’m going to feel a bit nervous and scared,” the teen said.
Ms. Wheeler said her daughter was also a bit nervous about mixing with others at first. However, Ms. Kyles’s classmates eventually gravitated toward her, and now, she has several friends. Despite the challenges, attending community college was a blessing, says the teen; she’s grateful for the classes she took there.
“They definitely helped me grow academically and socially because I’m interacting with so many people of so much different diversity and age range,” Ms. Kyles said. “I can interact very well with people a lot older than me as well as people my own age.”
After Bakersfield, she attended the University of the Pacific. In most of her classes there, Ms. Kyles has been the youngest student. She hasn’t told everyone about her age save for some friends and professors, who are often surprised to hear it.
Despite an academically challenging course load at university, Ms. Kyles has been able to enjoy some free time, which has allowed her to pursue hobbies.
“If you stay disciplined, and if you stay on task, and you complete your homework, you have a lot of time. You just have to have good time management skills,” she said.
Discipline and Hard Work
Each of Ms. Wheeler’s five children, four girls and a boy, have been homeschooled for their entire education. Ms. Kyles started learning to read at the age of 4.Some subjects in school came easily to Ms. Kyles, like English and history. Other subjects proved to be more difficult. Ms. Wheeler enlisted the help of a math tutor for a few years, which boosted Ms. Kyles’s success in that area.
As a seasoned homeschool parent, Ms. Wheeler advises other parents interested in homeschooling to emphasize character development as much as education and to take the journey one day at a time. She also suggests that parents connect with other homeschooling families and invest in tutors as needed.
Well on her way to receiving her diploma this fall, Ms. Kyles is poised for success and excited for the future.
“I’m just so proud of her,” her mother said. “I know that God’s going to do big things in her life.”
For people who want to start college early or experience educational success like hers, Ms. Kyles emphasizes the importance of consistent discipline over short-lived motivation.
“You can have so much motivation, but it’s not going to get you where you want to be, you have to have that discipline. So for anybody going into this, it’s rigorous, it’s difficult, and you need to have that discipline to get to see it through,” she said.
Ms. Wheeler is proud of each of her children and happy to see that her hard work has paid off. For her family, the decision to homeschool has been a blessing.
