Will attended Tallgrass from age 16 to 18. Here's his story.
Current age and occupation: 25, master's student
Schooling previous to Tallgrass: Will unschooled (a type of homeschooling) before attending Tallgrass during its first two years. He never went to a conventional K-12 school.
What are you doing now?
I’m currently a master’s student at Roosevelt University. I’ll be getting my MA in Economics in May of this year. I got my BA in Economics, also from Roosevelt, a few years ago.
How did you spend your time at Tallgrass?
A lot of the time at Tallgrass I was hanging out with my friends, but also talking about stuff, and generally trying to figure out what to do with my time, what I enjoy most. I played less video games after I came to Tallgrass than before. I tended to play much more nerdy strategy games, that fit into that whole economics thing, but they’re much more solitary games. When I was at Tallgrass, I wanted to be with people and talk to people, not type numbers in.
Were you planning to go to college while at Tallgrass?
I was already thinking about college when I started at Tallgrass, but didn’t have any firm plans. I knew I wanted to study economics, so a lot of what I did at Tallgrass was directed at that one way or another. I went to a community college as a stepping stone to a 4-year university. I ended up taking economics classes at night while I was at Tallgrass.
How did you get into college?
I think I had to take a placement test to start at community college, and then when I went to Roosevelt they transferred my credits. Somehow I managed to do all this without ever taking a standardized test, which could be good thing or a bad thing, but I like to think of it as a good thing. If you can’t stand standardized tests, you can still get a master’s degree. I think taking one class to start with really did help, because I know when I signed up for that class, I didn’t know what to do, but it turned out that class wasn’t too difficult. Building step by step really helped. With math, I went from taking prealgebra to calculus in less than two years.
Would you send your child to Sudbury school?
Yes. It obviously depends on what the child and my partner would think about that, but I think it’s a great option for a lot of kids with varied interests. All sorts of kids can benefit from going to a Sudbury school.
See more from Will and from other Tallgrass alumni in our alumni panel discussion video.