Starting college is a big adjustment under any circumstances. Nick Ackerman and Teagan Byrne, both freshmen at Christendom College in Front Royal, made the leap directly from 13 years of homeschooling. They said homeschool’s lessons eased their transition.
Teagan credits homeschooling for giving her the confidence to work independently. “Having had freedom within the structure of homeschooling to practice ordering and structuring my studies and my time, I feel that I learned how to be intentional in my efforts here as well,” she said. “Having been prepared in this way, I feel I have experienced an exciting and fruitful beginning to college thus far.”
“Homeschooling taught me to spread out my workload by myself,” Nick said.
Nick and Teagan started their 14th consecutive academic year as classmates last month. Their education journeys began in a preschool club Teagan’s mother, Julie Byrne, led with Collette Sciscilo, with the then-emerging Manassas Area Roman Catholic Homeschoolers, or MARCH. Both were parishioners of Holy Trinity Church in Gainesville prior to college.
Nick plays rugby and is one of two winners of Christendom’s Thomas S. Vander Woude Athletic Scholarship. Teagan is one of three recipients selected from 98 applicants for the school’s Padre Pio Full-Tuition Scholarship.
“It’s extraordinary to get to this point,” said Nelda Ackerman, Nick’s mom. Homeschooling was not on her mind during a dynamic career as a government attorney in downtown Washington in the early 2000s. But her husband, Rob, had a cousin who demonstrated it could be done well through high school. Nelda researched and then committed to homeschooling as part of her vocation of motherhood.
The Ackermans filed for a religious exemption from public schooling with the commonwealth of Virginia and began homeschooling Nick, and later, daughter Katherine. Courses in moral theology and other topics offered by Father Vincent Bork, parochial vicar, at Holy Trinity’s homeschool academics program and a film class led by Father Richard Carr, parochial vicar, enriched Nick’s high school education.
He graduated with ropes and stoles signifying his exceptional academic accomplishments, as a member of the National Homeschool Honor Society, Eta Sigma Alpha. While majoring in math at Christendom, Nick is open to a vocation in the priesthood. To succeed in college, he said homeschoolers must learn good time-management and note-taking skills, while developing strong study habits and avoid taking on too many classes or activities in the first semester.
When Teagan was 3 years old, Julie employed the popular book “Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.” Her daughter caught on quickly, and their academic homeschool path began to take shape. The Byrnes later had five more children, and their educational experiences have taken them to Texas, to Germany, and back to Virginia. A convert to Catholicism, Julie worked with Rosario Reilly as a developer for several components of the homeschool hybrid program, Aquinas Learning, including a Latin program for high schoolers. Teagan’s education was supplemented by material from Memoria Press, Seton Homeschool and free courses through the Institute for Catholic Culture. In her senior year, she picked up six courses through dual enrollment with Holy Apostles College and Seminary. At Christendom, she is discerning potential vocations of teaching and motherhood.
Teagan advised fellow homeschoolers looking forward to college to “lean into your efforts with confidence.”
“There are many unfamiliar aspects of college that seem hard — and are hard — to adjust to, especially at the beginning,” she said. “However, not everything changes: the habits you commit to practicing through your time in high school will be familiar wells of strength to draw from.”
Beyond everything, she said, deepen your relationship with Christ as a stronghold even as other circumstances change. “He wants to make the next steps alongside you.”
