What do you do with your spare time?

Pre-College Issues Home Schooling and College
1

I’ve been putting a lot of thought into my homeschooled career so far (junior) and I’m starting to get a little curious about extracurriculars. I am well aware that this board is flooded with people with the exact same concerns (I’m a very skilled lurker) but I wanted to ask the homeschool crowd what kinds of things they do.

From what I’ve seen, brick-and-mortar students will more or less all do the same things. They’ll be members in a handful of clubs, maybe as leadership in a couple, they’ll participate in a sport, they’ll volunteer for x amount of hours at one place, and some may win a couple of awards at their school.

I’m just really interested to see what the average homeschooler does with their spare time, basically. Whenever I tell people that I’m homeschooled, they assume one of three things: that I’m very religious, that I have an IQ of 400 and I don’t understand the concept of ‘fun’, or that I sit around all day and watch TV.

I plan on applying to some top-25 schools (not getting my hopes up, though) and as far as “extracurriculars” go:

  • During my freshman and sophomore year, I held a very competitive internship position at a local government office. I say competitive because almost exclusively college students end up getting the spots, and I was able to get a spot both years.
  • Have also put a considerable amount of time volunteering at local government offices. (Libraries, courts, etc.) Was able to kickstart a teen advisory board and gaming club at the library. Also some miscellaneous volunteer work, like helping out at my city's annual film festival, helping out during different charity drives, etc.
  • Have worked part-time with the family business for the last ~5 years. Responsibilities were obviously pretty minor to start with, but I've started to make pretty significant contributions. (Family runs two online publications, and I do a significant amount of editing and a fair amount of content writing. Mom also runs a non-profit, which I have helped out with.)
  • Do a lot of tutoring, both online (via my virtual school) and personally. I tutor my younger brother in math, and various kids of friends of the family in other subjects.

As far as what I do “for fun”, I like to play and create video games. The games I make are mostly text-based, in programs like Choicescripts and Twine. I really, really love old text-based games like Zork and Photopia, almost more than I love modern games that are made today. I really like to watch documentaries, and I read non-fiction books about astronomy and space for pleasure. I also really enjoy watching cartoons.

2

I am not homeschooled but I do know quite a few homeschoolers. Most, if not all, play a club sport like volleyball or soccer or all star cheer. Some do boy scouts/girl scouts or Youth in Government.

3

My kids spend their time doing whatever it is that they want to do. Our oldest had a part-time job, built a gazillion contraptions (think Maker Magazine in full blown action), was a Venture Scout, and tried to form a band with some friends. He is now a chemE.

His younger sister spent a lot of time volunteering at Little Sisters of the Poor, worked as a caregiver for a severely disabled teenage boy (he functioned on about an 18 month old level), and figure skated. She is now an occupational therapy assistant.

His younger brother was part of a math club, did research with one of his professors from DE, was a Boy Scout, and spent a lot of time involved at church. (He is now double majoring in math and physics.)

Our 11th grader is part of Alliance Francaise and has befriended some recent teenage French immigrants, watches movies in French, fences, figure skates, and spends a lot of time drawing (she is a talented artist.)

There is no single answer. Be authentically you.

4

Im homeschooled, so whenever im bored I usually go back to doing my work in my spare time. However, occasionally I’ll slack offer and splurge on the t.v and binge watch Law and Order SVU on Netflix. I dont do much.

5

@Soccerchic24 That’s the hardest part about being homeschooled, for me. Homework is NEVER finished. There’s always something that you can be doing. Makes it hard to find “me time”.

6

OP, you sound awesome! :slight_smile:

7

@Bozusaki your right

8

I was working a full time job in my spare time…fyi 9 hour workdays are not fun :frowning: But I quit that job so I could focus on graduating a year early. So now I do schoolwork for insane amounts of time then play videogames.

9

I play online games like Dota2 or 777spinslot