Temima Rocklin – Dalhousie U, Theatre & Costume Design

I attended Alpha II for my last year of high school. Before that, I had been homeschooled/unschooled since kindergarten; essentially, I had never been in a traditional school setting. I was a creative child, and got into theatre and the arts from a young age. In middle school, I became interested in writing fiction, and for a long time my dream was to be an author. 

When I started high school, I chose to put a lot of focus into my academics, studying those at home in addition to many extracurriculars outside of the house. As for many, the pandemic presented its challenges, particularly when it came to my vibrant social life, but I made it through. After that, one of my brothers began attending Alpha II, mainly for the social experience. Out of curiosity, I came to one of the school’s open houses that year, and was pulled in by the mentors’ understanding of unschooled learning, and was also very excited by the extensive art supplies they had (of course I was). It seemed like attending Alpha II could be a good opportunity to meet new people, explore new things, and use resources I didn’t have access to when I was homeschooled. 

I decided to do a trial week that spring (2023), and I really enjoyed myself. Everyone was quite busy preparing for the yearly Coffeehouse event, but I got to talk to people and spent a lot of time working on art projects. A few weeks later, my family attended Coffeehouse to see my brother, and I got to see the culminations of all the students’ work that year. That fall, I decided to enroll at Alpha II for my last year of high school. 

My time at Alpha II allowed me to continue working on my interests, such as sewing. I embarked on the project of creating a mostly-accurate medieval dress, and taught myself a medieval method of making cord. One of the mentors helped me continue learning piano like I had the year before, and we set the goal of learning a piece of music from one of my favourite movies. I also got to discover new interests, such as learning to play Dungeons and Dragons. Our D&D campaign was run by a fellow mentee, with three students and one teacher learning as we played. We went on awesome field trips, such as to the KAWS art exhibit at the AGO, the Bata Shoe Museum, and a Fall Fun Day at a farm (I was surprised to find that a sheep feels almost exactly like a wool sweater!). 

I also kept up with traditional academic subjects, independently studying Math, History, and more. In the spring, I decided I wanted to try and write a play. After many months, I came up with a script inspired by a favorite childhood picture book of mine, The Paper Bag Princess. I learned so much from writing the play, finding actors, running rehearsals, organizing props and costumes, and playing the main role. I also had so much fun! The fellow mentees who joined the project were so nice to work with, and though of course there were mishaps and setbacks, we were all really happy with how the play turned out. We did our big performance at the Coffeehouse event in 2024. It felt like a culmination of everything I had been working on that year. 

These projects and educational experiences really helped me to solidify my plans for the future. I had a better idea of what I wanted to do with my life, and of perhaps how to get there. Working on my theatrical productions and sewing projects that year, I realized I might like to become a costume designer for theatre. I spent a lot of time talking with the mentors at Alpha II, as well as with my parents, about post-secondary options as an unschooler. I decided to take a gap year to figure out my plans. During that time, I decided to apply to universities as a homeschool graduate, following the instructions for such applicants provided on each school’s website. It was sometimes quite a process to actually find that information, or to understand it, or to then provide the documents the school wanted, but with help, I figured it out in the end. During my gap year I turned nineteen, so I also applied to colleges as a mature student as a backup plan. 

I made a last-minute decision to apply to Dalhousie University, which is in Nova Scotia! I got into that, as well as another university and a college. I decided to go to Dalhousie because their Costume Studies program was so unique, and though it was very far away from home, and I was nervous, I felt that I was ready to start this new chapter of my life, with new independence. And that’s where I am now! I’m very happy with everything that I’ve done and with where I’ve ended up.

I’m happy to talk to anyone who has any questions about Alpha II or about my journey to post-secondary school.