Jessica Meeker is growing up. No longer the shy 12-year-old homeschooler who made national headlines when she enrolled at Penn State in June 2000, Meeker is now 14 and a college graduate, having received an associate degree in letters, arts and sciences from Penn State's College of the Liberal Arts Saturday.
Gone are the metal-framed glasses, replaced by contact lenses that show off her sky-blue eyes.
Gone is the long, dark hair that once fell to her elbows, replaced with two short, stylishly-low ponytails.
Gone, too, are the dreams of one day becoming a doctor ("I don't have a lot of patience with people") and the halting manner with which she approached classes.
"I'm not as shy as I used to be," Jessica said. "I talk to more people, ask more questions in class."
What remains: a Winnie-the-Pooh backpack she's carried since her first semester, nail polish in funky shades of blue or green, a love of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," her teenager's fashion sense reflected in glitter jeans and a stretchy top accented with tiny rhinestones.
"I dress really different now," she said. "All my friends think I'm crazy because I have this really weird fashion taste, but my mom doesn't say much as long as it's not too Britney Spears-ish."
Boys are becoming an issue.
"I had a boyfriend -- Patrick," she said, looking up from the kitchen table in her Bellefonte home where she was busy taping cardboard "points" from pizza boxes to a sheet of paper. Later, she'll use the points in an online auction, where she delights in running up the bids.
"I met him when we were on vacation in Florida," she said. "We used to e-mail each other all the time, until his mom got rid of their computer."
"She keeps coming home and saying 'Daddy, I made a new friend today,' and I'll say 'Oh really? What's her name?,' " said her father Floyd, looking at her from across the table. "And it's always 'Jim' or 'Dave' or something like that."
"Daddy, I do not!" Jessica responds with mock indignation. "I don't have any friends named Jim or Dave!"
Academic exercise
Boys aren't the only thing on her mind.
Now having completed one degree, Meeker is looking to the future, planning her academic path.
"It's gone better than we expected, really," Floyd said. "All along it was sort of a grand experiment."
Her grades have been A's, some B's and the occasional C. Originally aiming for a four-year degree, that plan was scrapped in favor of a shorter, more quickly attainable goal. A minimum of 60 credits were required for the associate degree.
"A year into it, we were thinking, 'Four years is a long time -- like one-third of her whole life,' "mom Leigh said. "It didn't make sense to stick to something that was so far off when she's so young."
Instead, Jessica begins classes again this summer, working toward her next goal: a baccalaureate degree in psychology.
After that, she plans to continue on for master's in computer science and then, she says, a Ph.D.
"She had the opportunity to take the summer off," her mom said, shaking her head at her daughter across the table. "Instead, she's taking an acting class and Chinese. The kicker is, she's doing it just for fun. It doesn't even count toward her degree."
"Well, I keep having professors who can't speak English," said Jessica, exasperated.
Like many students, Jessica is discovering new areas of study to explore.
"I like Spanish," she said. "I had a philosophy class which I hated, hated, hated. I think I got a B in it."
"She was really into the math and science before, but now she's really doing well in the humanities," Leigh said. "I don't think she realized fields like human development were out there, but that's what college is for -- finding something you love that you are really good at."
The wonder years
The girl who once cringed at the idea of having her picture taken is now positively nonchalant at having a photographer trail her on campus. That's what happens when you've made appearances on the "Today" show (she's even got pictures with Katie and Matt), MSNBC, local and regional news shows, as well as national magazines and newspapers across the country.
The May 2002 issue of National Geographic World (a magazine for kids) features a story on Jessica under the headline "Girl Genius."
"It wasn't really a big deal to me," she said of appearing on national television. Then her face lights up. "On the 'Today' show, I got to ride in a limousine, though. That was really cool!"
That doesn't mean she's comfortable with it, though.
"I hate watching myself on TV. I look really dumb," she said with a grimace, as a videotaped news program about her plays in the living room.
While some of the articles that have been published asked if children like Jessica miss out on childhood, it's pretty obvious that Jessica isn't.
From racing a go-cart around the property to pulling April Fool's pranks on her 11-year-old brother Carl (she once sewed all of his underwear together), Jessica seems to act her age.
"My friend and I go to the mall at least once a week," said Jessica, who continues living at home. "We don't buy anything. We just walk back and forth and look in the windows."
On campus, she meets friends like Spring Cooper for lunch, studying or hanging out at the HUB.
Cooper, who graduated with her bachelor's degree Saturday, befriended Jessica early on.
"I was at the HUB with some reporters, and she was like, 'If you ever need someone to talk to, here's my number,' " Jessica said. "We've been meeting for lunch once a week ever since."
"The crowd she runs with, it's more of a one-on-one kind of friendship," mom Leigh said. "It's not like they talk about what they did with their boyfriends last night. They all seem very protective of her, like a big sister."
"Some (of my friends) are 20, and some are 12 or 13," Jessica said.
And when the pressure of college classes (or her younger brother) starts getting to her, Jessica can always e-mail her friend Cassandra Stevenson in Connecticut to commiserate.
Cassandra, too, is a 14-year-old college student, although she's been studying at University of West Connecticut for a full year longer. Cassandra's mother, who had another daughter start college at an early age, was quoted in a Philadelphia Inquirer article about Jessica.
The girls became electronic pen-pals, instant messaging each other several times a day. They will get a chance to meet face-to-face this summer when the Meekers go to New England for a vacation.
Asked whether the girls spend their time talking about boys or their parents, Jessica turns a bright red.
"I'd rather skip that question," she says.
"We've always taught her that it doesn't matter if you have a lot of friends," Leigh said. "It matters if you have friends who can think like you or who feel like you."
Once a week Jessica spends an hour or so with lecturer Zachary Tseng, who taught her freshman calculus class.
Tseng and Jessica meet in his office, where he helps her with chemistry or math problems.
Other times, they simply hang out and shoot the breeze.
"We talk about TV shows like 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer,' and of course music. We make fun of each other's music taste," he said. "She likes 'N Sync, the boy bands, so I ask her, 'Have you heard of Eric Clapton? Simon and Garfunkel?' "
Other than her age, she's not too different from many other students he sees, he said.
"I think the whole experience for her is some good, some bad," Tseng said. "It's a whole maturing process, and that's the case for most students."
Christine Hughes, her academic adviser, was surprised when a 14-year old girl walked into her office; she was even more surprised once Jessica began discussing her goals.
"She is obviously a teen-ager, but she was also very self-possessed and aware," Hughes said. "I was surprised she knew as much as she did. She knew the different types of degrees and what it would take to earn them."
Meeker's choice to first complete an associate degree, then a four-year degree is not a common one, Hughes said.
"It's one of the more unusual options," she said. "She's unique in a number of ways, not just her age, but the ways she wants to pair things together, especially in a graduate degree."
But that's a long way off for a girl who still earns her pocket money "baby-sitting" her neighbor's dogs.
And as she sits in a hallway outside of a lecture hall, Jessica lets out a sigh when she thinks ahead that far.
"I just can't wait to finish school and get a job so I'm not broke all the time," she said.
Permission Statement
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