Hi Deb,
It's been a few years since our last daughter graduated from Everest in 2020. Since that time, both our daughters (Kelly 2018, Laura 2020) graduated from Samford University in their chosen majors. Kelly is now working as a Marketing and Business Analyst at Alabama Power and Laura is building her business as a language acquisition coach and teacher.
Homeschooling with Everest allowed us the opportunity to focus our time toward each of the girls' interests. They were able to learn things like ballroom dance and cultivate knowledge in areas like interior design and world cultures. Those extras weren't just perks of more free time, but have proved to be useful to them as young adults. Thank you for what you do to make homeschooling reasonable and easy for families like ours.
It matters.
I thought you may be interested in Laura's latest endeavor regarding world languages. After learning Spanish and Russian during homeschool, she added German during college. She assisted teaching Russian during her 3 and a half years at Samford (she graduated early), and began teaching ESL and Spanish both online and in person. Her language proficiency allowed her to travel to Ukraine (shortly before the war) and Poland where she was able to have real world practice and meet more international friends. During her last college summer she lived in Germany and worked for an affiliate company of the German government. After graduation, she began her own company, Lauri Speaks along with her website Laurispeaks.com. (Lauri is easier for some of her foreign friends to say and remember.) This week, she introduced her first e-book on Amazon detailing some of her learning strategies for language learning and how to break through the typical mental barriers that slow the process. This may be something that would be helpful to other students and learners as well if they want to truly dedicate themselves to study and master a language.
It's a crazy, ever-changing world and we can't wait to see what lies ahead for her. We wish more people knew the potential of homeschooling and the doors that extra learning can provide.
Thanks again, for all that you did for us during those years!
Blessings,
Alison Aughtman
