This is primarily for my boys (@gorc is currently interested in law, @shadowlioncub in marine biology). We use Khan Academy because that was what was freely available when I started looking into homeschooling resources.
First and foremost
Everything requires basic literacy and numeracy. So get through the high school maths on KA (start at your grade level, if it's too hard, play down, if it's too easy, play up, if you're in high school/over grade 8 and it's too hard, keep dropping til you can do it, then work back up).
Literacy is reasonably easy to cover by simply reading, writing, actively paying attention to things that you're watching and discussing/debating things with other people (online is fine but try to get some face time as well). Just like your diet, make sure you're consuming a wide range of media (more quality, less crap) and check your sources for non-fiction.
And obviously feel free to do any of the other KA courses that look interesting. I recommend world history.
Law
Practise research, writing and debating skills. You'll need them. Hate writing? Perhaps this is the wrong career choice then. Typing counts as writing though actual writing will be helpful. The grammar course is probably a good idea.
When you're 18, apply to one of the unis using one of the "uni-enabling" courses and use that to get in. Murdoch has "pre-law" courses that may be worth checking out.
Alternately do one of the degrees from Open Universities Australia as if you're feeling particularly motivated, it seems you can do them from 16.
There's a law museum in Perth that we can go check out, and we'll also see if there's any public court cases we can sit in on to watch lawyers at work. And there is also the library for books, and I have been informed that there are apparently some decent Australian law dramas.
Marine Biology
Optionally in addition to doing high school maths, do high school biology. This is optional because while I needed high school biology to get into the BSc of the same name at uni, it didn't seem necessary given what they were teaching in the first year units. Otherwise just hit these ones after finishing the high school maths course. I'm doing a tree where further indented dot points need to be done after the one above them. Dot points on the same level can be done at the same time (finishing the prerequisite point is strongly recommended).
- biology
- chemistry
- statistics and probability
- physics (optional, helpful)
- algebra (optional, useful especially if you decide to do physics)
- algebra 2 (optional, if the first one was fun)
You'll probably have to wait til 18 and do a uni-enabling course to get in, but that's probably the best option for @shadowlioncub anyway.
We've done AQWA and may go again, they have done marine biology excursions previously but we missed them so will be keeping an eye out to see if they come up again. The weather has been fining up so I'm going to try to do more beach and river trips (though @shadowlioncub is much less interested in rivers than he is in the ocean). And there is also the library and there'll be in theme documentaries on Netflix and Youtube.
I know it looks pretty short on paper...er...screen but so does a 4 year uni course. The courses in the links are kind of big. Just take it at a comfortable pace as burning out is bad.
This post also appears on my blog.
@gorc, @pixietrix and @shadowlioncub are each receiving 33% of the post payout.
I would have finished this earlier but it was all text and I don't think I've done something that was just text for a while and it looked boring. I'll leave out the shenanigans when I send a copy to my moderator XD
Thanks for looking! ^_^
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Very valuable information!
but, in all honesty, what attracted me to this post, where your sketchies. Only just now, I realized that what seemed to be two horns, from my periphery, are actually piles of books. The second one, with the diver and the fish is kind of cute.
Btw, what kid doesn't want to become a marine biologist. I sometimes wonder if that's one of my missed chances ;>)
P.S. I guess your kid is a little too young to watch the law series 'Suits' and too modern to enjoy the 1957 '12 Angry Man'? ;>)
Glad you like the silly sketchies XD When I was at school and even in uni I used to hate drawing/finding diagrams for reports/articles/whatever the hell I needed to be writing at the time. Now I have a hard time just throwing text at the internet.
Now that you mention it, they do look a bit like horns don't they XD
Right? :D I was going to either double major in it or have it as a minor when I was doing my biology degree. Sadly I assumed I was too stupid for organic chemistry (required unit and I didn't know dyscalculia was a thing at the time) and then a busted eardrum and many, many years later a chest infection that to this day seems to be affecting my lungs were the final nails in that particular coffin.
Although having said that neither of the big kids have expressed any interest in actually studying marine biology past what we happen do cover in homeschooling XD
It's getting harder to get into uni without the official school certificates now, if you actually want to get in at 18. Angel had to do STAT to get in at Adelaide, which is the adult entry path and she had to be 18 to do it. In some other states you have to be 21 before you can do the adult entry, so you're forced to do year 13 of you want to get in sooner. We didn't look into WA. What's it like there?
Murdoch and Curtin have alternate pathways. Murdoch has three which look like the same thing at different speeds from an intense 12 week thing to a more sedate 12 month option. With Curtin you can weave through an attached college for a year (I think it’s Canning College but I could be remembering incorrectly) or do their “UniReady” course for 6-12 months.
It seems possible to get into some courses at all unis with a portfolio and interview (at least according to their websites). Murdoch seems the most flexible and when gorc wanted to do engineering we went to Curtin open day and student services outlined their paths in.
Open Universities says on the website that subjects are available for 16+.
The age thing doesn’t really bother us.
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At one point we probably felt a bit like we had to prove a point being homeschoolers and get her into uni early. Then I stopped giving a damn! 😆
Angel had wanted to get in at the start of the year, but she didn't turn 18 until just before the cut off for second semester admissions. That was frustrating for her, despite me saying it wasn't an issue and meant she had plenty of time to study in preparation. Interestingly, she's still one of the youngest students there, so she was over thinking things as usual. I think it's better that she waited to get a bit more maturity anyway.
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I can understand feeling like you had to prove a point, went through that as well, not helped by other people's (usually erroneous) assumptions about why we were homeschooling XD (it's always fun to be held to higher standards than schools XD) Got out of it pretty quick though as it was stressful and I avoid extra stress like the plague XD
What is with that!? If you come out of school mediocre, that's okay, but if you're homeschooled and mediocre, then your parents failed you and you were deprived of schooling. Mind you, it's the same with scholarships. If you have the money you can pay for the best dance/sport coaching, but if you want a scholarship you have to be way above average and have achieved that without the benefit of being able to pay for all the extra training the others have.
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