"You’d be surprised how many students were like, ‘I wish my mom would go to school with me,'" said mom Kathy Earheart.
Not only is this 16-year-old a college student, but she’s also classmates with her mom, who enrolled after being motivated by her daughter’s success.
Emma Earhart, a junior at the University of North Texas, attends all of her classes with mom Kathy Earhart, who has the exact same schedule.
“Going to college together just makes our friendship so much stronger,” Emma told InsideEdition.com. “We study together, we help each other out, it’s really nice.”
The 37-year-old mom agreed, saying, “It’s nice to have that built-in study buddy. You’d be surprised how many students were like, ‘I wish my mom would go to school with me.”
Emma has always been a straight-A student and never quite felt challenged when she was in school.
“I didn’t really feel ahead of the curve [but] I was more at the top of my class,” Emma said. “I heard of kids that got to skip a grade and I was like, I don’t want to do that so I stayed in my grade and was doing fine.”
When she got to high school, she quickly realized it wasn’t for her.
“I didn’t want to miss homecoming and all that stuff, but after going there for the first three days, I was like, no,” Emma said.
With support from her mom, Emma took the Texas Success Initiative test, which determined she was ready for college-level courses.
Using her credentials, she enrolled in dual-credit courses at North Central Texas College, where she earned her high school diploma and associate's degree in two years.
Next, she enrolled in the University of North Texas to pursue her bachelor's degree.
“It’s so interesting to learn all these new subjects you never thought of learning before,” Emma said, emphasizing her newfound love for organic chemistry. “We don’t have to stress about what people think of us the next day we go to school and that’s one of the greatest things about coming to college.”
Inspired by her daughter’s love for college, Kathy said she decided to enroll for herself. She explained that she had taken dual-credit courses at her high school 20 years ago but went on to become a stay-at-home mom and assumed her college days were over.
The mother-daughter pair originally didn’t want to attend any of the same classes, but this semester, they ended up picking the same schedules by coincidence.
“First day of class, the professor was like, ‘You guys have the same last name. Are you sisters?’ I’m like, ‘I’m her mother,’ and Emma at first was so embarrassed,” Kathy joked. “I think professors think somehow I’m going to help her, when the truth is, she’s helping me.”
Now, not only do they attend classes together and study together, they also go to football games together with their new group of college friends.
“She’s my best friend,” Emma said. “No matter what, she’s going to be there to support me and she’ll love me no matter what.”
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