My first week of classes wasn't like I thought it was going to be. The first day was mostly going over the syllabus, and while the professor did that, I spent most of my time surveying the people around me. I was more curious about who was taking the class and their purpose for taking it than I was going over the syllabus (no offense to the professors, but I was beyond ready to get into the real work). There's a slight divide between students: the ones that genuinely want to be there because they find the classes intriguing and could possibly even major in it, and the ones that were definitely here because it was a required general education course. What spiked my interest the most, though, was that I had noticed a lot of middle aged men and women in my Cultural Anthropology and Creative Writing courses.
It was puzzling because we are socialized to understand a common educational experience. The pattern goes as such: you work hard in high school, go to college, perhaps go to graduate school, and then get a job that will sustain you financially until you retire. Obviously, this is not the way that everyone lives their lives, but it perplexed me -- why did these people suddenly decide to go back to school, if they even went to school before this at all? Wasn't it peculiar to sit next to an eighteen year old and take the exact same notes as them? At first, I was mortified at how they couldn't be so embarrassed that they had to take the exact same courses as us.
My University Studies professor is a cognitive psychologist. Our focus, even though it's based around understanding college better as freshman, is on metacognition. He wants us to learn why we think the way that we think. I was petrified when he started using a plethora of words that I didn't understand, so much so that I almost felt encouraged to bring a dictionary to the next class. Before the end of our first class, my professor explained that he wasn't always like this. He dropped out of high school, like most of his friends. He moved around from job to job before deciding that he wanted to go back to school.
While working full time, my professor did night school at Chapel Hill. It took him until he was 26 years old to get his degrees; a double major in Psychology and English. He didn't go to graduate school until he was 30. I was in awe. He was my professor! I came into the class with this idea that because he was a professor at a college that he definitely never deviated from the path of education, much less dropping out of high school. There was a gleam in his eye that told me he was so proud to tell all of his students about how far he had come. This is when I realized that those moments, the ones where you can tell people how you went back to school and went on to do better for yourself, is why people take so much pride in going back to school.
There is no doubt that going back to school is difficult. Dismissing the idea of going back to school or furthering your education at all is easy. There are so many other things that are important, like your current job, or family, because most people have already created a life for themselves that doesn't include going back to school. It's time consuming, and on top of that, it is hard. If it's hard for students that have gone directly from high school to college, imagine how difficult it can be to immerse yourself as a 30, 40, or even 50-year-old that hasn't had to study for a grade in years.
However, there are great benefits of going back to school to get a college degree or a different degree. Money is always a good place to start. There's almost a $20,000 gap between high school graduates and college graduates. That can improve your quality of life, whether you're struggling to pay bills or you're trying to pay for your children's college tuition without having to bury yourself in student loans. You can do college online, when it's convenient for you. Then, there are kids. An incredible amount of influence comes from our parents. The more educated you are, the more educated they will want to be. Encouraging yourself to go to school will encourage them to do it as well. Plus, who doesn't love their child being proud of them?
Education is something only you can give to yourself. You have to want it, strive for it, and be willing to have an open mind. It can and will pave a better path for you, no matter what age. This is a privilege that others don't have, and you should take advantage of it.
