After ten years of homeschooling, Senior Kara Campbell joined CAHS for first and final year.

Campbell shared her story of how she became homeschooled. “When I was little, I would watch TV shows with people with bad attitudes … and I would come out and start talking just like [them]. I was just the person who adapted to everyone around me; I guess that worried [my parents]. I barely ever saw my parents … and my mom says she didn’t like how school controlled my entire everything.” 

“My parents wanted me to have more experience with [a] structured school environment and being around a lot of people since I have been homeschooled for so long before I went into ‘the real world’ and did college and all that jazz,” Campbell said.

“I think some of them are definitely true, but just like any stereotype there’s some truth to it, but there’s always the people who prove them wrong,” Campbell said, commenting on homeschool kid stereotypes.

“When I did interact with people, it was everybody of all ages and so I learned how to talk to different types of people and deal with them,” Campbell said. While it helped her personality, homeschooling didn’t benefit her academics any more than a public school would have. 

Campbell believes there are benefits from homeschooling that public school students don’t get. “I think it helps me deal with problems that I wouldn’t have to deal with if I had an external structure. Coping with my responsibilities [is] more self-directed than someone telling me how to,” she said.

Campbell hopes to join the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising. “I know a lot of people have gone [to FIDM] and it’s really well known in the fashion and art industry, but it’s expensive, and so I have to get a lot of scholarships to go,” she said.

Campbell also already has a store on Etsy called Wayward Whimsey, where she sells her hand-drawn cards. “My old homeschool group, we had an entrepreneur day where you would make stuff and then bring it in and people will buy it,” she said. People that bought her cards gave her the idea to sell them on Etsy. 

Campbell hopes to see the entire world, on a small budget. “I want to go backpacking, I don’t want to go to stay at a bunch of places. Basically the cheapest possible route you can go, is what I want to do,” Campbell said. She plans to see her family in Japan and Singapore while traveling the world.

To check out Kara Campbell’s Etsy store, click the link: www.Etsy.com/shop/waywardwhimsey.