Late for Class: Back to College after 60

2013-09-02T19:15:00.000-07:00

You've seen me harp on this before: never give up, because you can do whatever really means something to you. There is no such thing as too old, too dumb, too slow, too quiet, or, for that matter, too young. If you have a goal, you can reach it.

In Method Acting school, they taught us that we never needed to know how we were going to do something onstage. What we had to know was what we were going to do, and why we were going to do it. The "how" was going to arise from the "what" and the "why" organically, without our fussing over particular gestures or facial expressions.

While that works very well on stage, and for that matter in television and radio announcing, that mental technique takes a real leap of faith when you're changing your life to return to school, change jobs, have your first child, or retire on a small budget. To the Method, I have to add, if you want to do it, you can find help. Look for scholarships, grants, education programs, workshops, whatever might be useful. You might be surprised: if your credit union offers a seminar on housing costs, or the auto association presents a class on inexpensive travel, you could learn something that you can add into your own mix. Your education or retirement or great American novel doesn't have to look like anyone else's. It just has to look like what you want. If it stops being what you want, you have your own permission to change your mix, I hope.

This diatribe is brought on by the triumph today of Diana Nyad, who, at age 64, swam from Havana to Florida. If nothing else, she's shown the world that there are even fewer boundaries than we imagine. For every person who says "too old," the response from now on should be, "Yeah, I probably am, but when did you last swim for 53 hours, or write a thesis, or shoe a horse, or even sing a song to your parents? What's your excuse for not doing anything memorable in your life so far?"

2013-08-31T12:28:00.000-07:00

Dear Pam,

I am in total panic over this paper, because it needs to be perfect, and I don't think I did enough research and the professor doesn't like me and I don't know what to do next and there are too many possibilities because he didn't narrow the topic down and tell me how to write a thesis statement and I think I'm gonna be sick. What can I do now to get an A on this paper that's due day after tomorrow?

-- Alphonse

Dear Al,

Shut up and write as if your next meal depends on it.

Sincerely,
Pam

P.S. Swear off conjunctions.

2013-08-28T09:03:00.001-07:00

As you may have noticed, it's been a while. I graduated from college and felt that I had nothing more to say about the process of getting a degree late in life. Silly me.

For about six months after I got the degree in my hand, I looked desperately for work. It really was the "rug pulled out from under me" experience when I discovered that many (but not all) employers didn't want a newly graduated English major who is above a certain age. Big-Box Mart had a dandy greeter job to offer, but that's another post. Those months were harsh, and I was becoming rather bitter. I felt like jumping up on a Starbucks table and yelling, "I don't want to be a supervisor! I don't want to order people around! I just want to write marketing and site content!"

That, however, would have been crazy.

Instead, I went to a conference presented by an international organization I had joined in college. I got a special admissions rate because I was an unemployed scholar. Putting aside the medieval imagery of the wandering, ragged mendicant for a while, I attended sessions and looked at books. That's where it got interesting for about 18 months. I was contracted to write about Lewis Carroll in a series of three e-books. The royalties will never do more than pay for the occasional ice cream cone, but the project kept me busy and preoccupied with academic research. Also, it kept me on campus, in the library and around professors and monks. This paid off quite unexpectedly.

Last spring, as everyone was packing up after graduation, a professor offered me the chance to fill in as a senior lecturer in a team-teaching class that he would not be able to cover. It's a one-semester gig, but it again provides access to the academic library system, which is vital for serious research into literary and philosophical topics. It also means that I'll be working with students, correcting papers (a lot) and exploring the issues that show up when minds try to tackle new topics in new ways. I'm hoping that the semester will be productive for the students -- and that I don't kill any of the plants entrusted to my care by the absent professor.

He'll be back by the winter holidays. If the plants die, perhaps I will be able to deflect his wrath by putting up a huge sparkly wreath in their place.

More later. One more thought, though: It is never too late to learn, to get that degree. You can be a little ill and 47 years old, and the children may not be at all cooperative, and the house may be a wood-heated, drafty disaster. If you don't go back to school, you will still be mired in the same state. If you do go back, your condition will be different, because you will start thinking in terms of solutions. And if you graduate and the new, munificent job still doesn't show up, make a job.

As the saying goes, God will provide. Put some faith in yourself, and in Him. Both are good investments.

An Unlonely Number

2011-06-24T19:45:00.000-07:00

Our greatest accomplishments require time alone. If the young Einstein had been chatting with his buddies on that city trolley around a century ago, we still might not have the theory of relativity, and E=MC(squared) might be just another meaningless bit of formula that never attached itself to a concept. The Williams sisters have spent a lot of quality time with the ball machine, perfecting those killer shots. St. Augustine, Thoreau, Marx, and even the party boy of the 20th century, F. Scott Fitzgerald, used solitude to think, to dream, and to write ideas that shook the world.

If you're considering going back to school at whatever level, and you fear being cut off from your social life, bear in mind that in order to become the person you really are, you need to spend time with yourself. That old cliche' about loving yourself is fine, but what real accomplishment requires is that you really know yourself so you can open your heart and your life. Then your true self can been seen in the world around you through your work, not just your voice.

So many people worry about being alone. They fill their days and nights with movement and casual friends, labor and workmates, hobbies and trips to the gym, the beach, the hardware store, Acapulco, the sushi bar . . . And when they finally get home, they fill the air around them with their music, and the surround sound from the TV and the phone calls to more and more people as they try to fill every hour in the days to come.

Alternatively, why not turn off all the noise? Stop answering the cell phone for two days. No email for a whole weekend. Turn off the stereo and the iPod. Cancel a few social events and put the gardening and hot yoga aside for a while, and just see what you really think. Listen to yourself when you are thinking about something more important than your credit card balance, and get familiar with that voice.

That's the voice you'll hear a lot once you're back in class, because you'll be spending more time alone than you do now, studying, thinking, planning, and executing. Eventually in the educational process, each student discovers that solitude is both a treasure and a key that unlocks even more delights than those noisy people can ever imagine.

Relentless, But in a Good Way

2011-06-23T01:00:00.000-07:00

Just recently, I bought a gizmo. This is the third or fourth gizmo I've bought from the same company, but it's been a few years since I purchased the last one. I like the new gizmo even more than I liked the old gizmo: it does what it is supposed to do, it's dependable, and it's cute. As for the company that makes the gizmo, I have no real opinion. Same for the company that sold it to me. Nonetheless, the two companies, thanks to this simple financial transaction, are now driving me nuts trying to be my new best friend.

Since I handed them the money to pay for the gizmo, I have had three phone calls, four emails, three snailmails, and three quizzes from these folks. The gizmo and I have taken to hiding in the house with the blinds drawn because I've started imagining the gizmo's parent company sending out a crack paramilitary troupe just to make sure everything is okay with my customer satisfaction, since I waited 24 hours to respond to their last survey request.

On reflection, I know that this is just the current mode of post-sales marketing. Someone somewhere at the gizmo's factory wants to find out why I bought the gizmo. So does someone at the place where I bought it. Luckily, I know why I bought the gizmo: I want to use it.

All this persistence is good, though, because it reminds me of the most essential tool in seeking out an education at whatever academic level. Relentless persistence will keep the non-trad student going back to class for every meeting, writing copious notes, and then following the professor to his/her office to learn even more during the posted office hours. While traditional young students will worry that they shouldn't be bothering the professor, or that their questions are too dumb, or that the professor doesn't like answering questions, the non-trad has been around long enough to know that the office hours are part of the academic package that comes in exchange for that insanely large tuition-and-fees check. That persistence that you learned on the job, that got the daily, weekly, and quarterly projects and reports done, is what will mark you out as a student who gives a damn, and gets the As.

Now, if only I could convince the gizmo's parent company that they have been sufficiently persistent. Maybe I should send them an A, and a shiny gold star as a bonus.

Real Help

2011-06-22T13:03:00.000-07:00

This blog gets a little repetitive for some people. I spend a lot of time being awfully rah-rah-rah, in my efforts to support non-traditional students who are considering going back to school. The fact is, though, that I needed (and sometimes still need) a lot of support, and I don't want anyone to miss out on learning just because no one is standing right there at the registrar's office yelling, "Sign up! Do it now!"

I realize, though, that some non-trads will never consider going back to school because they think they may have a learning disability, vision problems, attention deficits, or really bad writing habits. That's a shame, because the modern university, as well as most community colleges, offers support for people who have a steeper hill to climb than many of us.

At St. Martin's University, we have the Learning and Writing Center; the equivalent facility is right in the center of things on the University of Washington campus. Besides the usual tutoring in math, philosophy, the sciences, and Japanese, French, German, and English, these centers also offer supportive services for all kinds of learning problems. They also offer peer readers, to help students turn out writing assignments, but for now, let's talk about the support.

Suppose you have dyslexia, and it's pretty severe. Depending on your needs and preferences, at a learning center you can complete testing to make sure that's the issue, rather than an eye problem; get help with taking class notes; learn how to work with your professors to arrange for more time to take tests or turn in papers; train to use software that translates your spoken words into computerized text; learn how to adapt Word and other software to your needs; and work with tutors and peer readers to manage your workload.

From working with a few students last semester, I know that learning disabilities do not mean that a person is stupid -- far from it. A particular student mathematician comes to mind: he's a brilliant logician and understands the whole of the mathematics syllabus without a single problem. However, he cannot spell or write down a coherent sentence on his own. The challenges of academic English leave him anxious and frustrated. I can't say that working with the student peer readers and tutors in the Learning Center has solved all his problems, but the Center has helped, and he'll be back in school this fall, instead of quitting his studies way short of his potential to do good things for the world.

In talking about non-trads with the staff at the Learning Center, I found out that many older students just don't use the services very much, even though the cost of them is included in the tuition. If using a tool from the Learning Center, whether it's time management or a sophisticated software system, is the difference between an A and dropping out again, isn't it wiser to reach out for that tool?

While you're on campus, looking over the layout of the buildings or signing up for this fall's classes, stop by your school's Learning Center. It could unlock a lot of mysteries for you when school starts.

Never Too Late, No Matter Who Says What

2011-06-20T06:59:00.000-07:00

I overheard someone say it again this past weekend: "I'm just too old to do that. It's way too late for me to try." Unless the man was talking about sky-diving or dating Paris Hilton, I can't agree. No matter what age we are, there is always time and energy to do important and meaningful work in this world. It's simply up to each of us to find it.

The really amazing thing I hear a lot from younger adults, in their 20s and 30s, is that they just don't think they can manage going back to school, even for an associate degree. From what I've seen over the past couple of years at St. Martin's University, the house, the job, the spouse, the sports team, even the kids, are all excuses that can be turned into assets with a little thought and planning.

Not everything will work out perfectly. Elsewhere in this blog i discuss some techniques for managing childcare logistics. Even with the best planning, though, everyone has childcare glitches that make stray days here and there really challenging. On the other hand, your child may get to meet your classmates. I particularly cherished getting to meet a little guy named Sawyer, who charmed an entire Women's Lit class with his patience and sunny smile.

Admissions deadlines are negotiable: check online, and then walk into the registrar's office and ask for help.

As for finances, have you asked? Check out scholarships, grants, and loans offered by your school, and go in and talk to the financial aid officer. You do not have to take out a bunch of loans to get through school; if you do the work and show you can excel at your studies, you can get grants and scholarships that will ease the way. Alternatively, you can continue to work and pay for each class as you go, taking one or two courses per session.

Or, you can get all the way to your 80th birthday, and wonder what you did with your spare time all the way back in the day as you get dressed for your shift as a greeter at Space-Mart because you were always too busy to get that degree.

Why Johnny Won't Read

2011-06-19T19:23:00.000-07:00

I love the smell of a new textbook, the sort of bleachy, chemical headiness that comes only from the freshest of soy ink and the slickest of paper. I love the charts, the maps, the illustrations, the fonts, and the chapter headings. Then there's the promise that floats over every book, that by the time you finish reading through its pages, you will know something that is shared only by the people who have thought deeply about the subject of the book, whatever it is.

This love is almost undiscriminating. I adore history books, particularly those about the history of small things, like clothing or cookware or farming tools. I lust after cookbooks, much to the chagrin of one of my professors, and I long for books about Paris and architecture. I want every book on Greek philosophy ever written, and I have a panting desire for biographies of obscure poets and famous clothing designers. A used book store can make me almost faint from all the siren calls from the mystery and literature sections. Mathematics, on the other hand, are not my thing.

In other words, my T-shirt should read: "English Major: You do the math." I have no warmth for numbers and sometimes ask store clerks to count out the coins I hand them because I just never got the hang of counting change. But even I could tell when a social sciences professor tried to put one over on his class. Names are being withheld to protect the not-so-innocent PhD who had the nerve sometime in the past two years to tell our class that he would be assigning "under 100 pages every week, so you shouldn't have any trouble getting the reading done." This was right after he had distributed a syllabus that made it clear that the reading for the first week totalled over 130 pages. We could see in black-and-white that he seemed to think that if 70 pages were due on Monday, and another 75 were due on Friday, that somehow came to 100 a week.

Even to an English major, this seemed a little outlandish.

So, if you take my advice and enroll in even one class, consider your reading workload and make room for it in your life. Consider renting your textbooks and invest heavily in Post-its, so you can make extensive notes.

A lot of traditional students do the math, totalling up all their class reading assignments, and then hyperventilate for a while before they go off to buy some pizza and a few beers. Most of the assigned reading on a college campus these days doesn't get done because of professors like the one I mentioned a few paragraphs ago. Be prepared, do the page counts, and use the professor's office hours to help him check his math. And then discuss the reading with him, so he knows you're doing it. No matter what his research grants say, that's what he's there for, and that's what your tuition is paying for.

Looks like it's time for me to go read a novel.

Prepare for Surprises

2011-06-17T07:04:00.000-07:00

Way last fall, I was deeply involved in writing a paper for a philosophy conference. Just so you know, here's what I learned from the experience:

Some graduate students and professors, while delighted to be invited, and excited to include their academic papers in their CVs, don't actually prepare for these events at all.

In a word, my colleagues from SMU and I were the oddballs at the conference. We wore business attire, we had PowerPoint displays, we had rehearsed, we had edited our papers and prepared thumb drive copies for anyone who wanted to read the final drafts , we were on time, we checked the equipment before we started, we hadn't slept the night before . . . We were total philosophy nerds with a side order of Microsofty.

Our peers stood at the podiums and shuffled through preliminary drafts of their papers, reading occasional paragraphs, sifted through a few more pages, read something else that sounded a little random, and said things like, "Oh, I forgot to read you this part back here."

Academic conferences may differ by discipline. English conferences, say those sponsored by the Modern Language Association, may be a lot different, and I'm certain engineering conferences are so buttoned down that they squeak, organizationally speaking. There is a middle path, though, and the next time I do another academic conference, I will do a lot of the same preparation that I did for this one. However, I'll also do some things I didn't do before this one:

Check out the sponsoring organization's culture by looking at photos of previous conferences. If I'd known that professors were presenting in Pendleton shirts, I might have left the suit and heels at home.

Be fully prepared with all the electronic presentation tools, but be ready to work without them. Not every academic conference is the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, and not every presentation is in a big auditorium, so you need to be ready to scale it back for more intimate settings.

Carry a business card with your email address on it, and maybe the URL for your blog. Yes, there's an app for that, but not everyone carries that kind of phone.

Check out local restaurants in advance online: Indian, Chinese, and Thai food trump the usual college cafeteria or banquet fare most of the time, and you can have better conversations in small groups than you can at a huge table if you meet any interesting conferees.

So, if you go back to school and you get invited to present at a conference, square your shoulders and your paper, and keep your eyes open -- it's another learning opportunity.

It's been a little crazy . . .

2011-06-16T10:51:00.000-07:00

Since last November, when I evidently last posted to this blog, a zillion things have happened, as they have in your life. The conference in Oregon was a lot different from what I had prepared for, and the work load in school got even more intense, and then stayed that way all the way through the final semester at St. Martin's University.

I didn't help matters by taking on a part-time job as the morning news voice at a local radio station. This did neither my academic achievement or the station much good, I suspect. I just had too much going on, what with peer reading at the university's Learning Center, joining an English and an academic honorary, trying desperately to write a coherent senior thesis (which is still a work in progress), maintaining the usual load of reading, writing, presentations, group projects, and the friendships of a lifetime . . .

It all simply became too much, despite daily meditation and all the other coping skills I could remember to use on occasion.

Nonetheless, I graduated, and I learned some stuff. Over the next few days, as I tidy up the last pages of the thesis and prepare to defend it, I'll try to tell you about some of the insights that came along and thwacked me over the head, and how this particular non-traditional student coped.
I'll give you a hint: a magic potion called pho is required for deeply successful academic magic to occur.

Up to No Good

2010-11-05T20:23:00.000-07:00

While the rest of the world has been deeply involved in the Congressional elections, Dancing with the Stars, and perfecting beer bong techniques, I've been preoccupied with much less momentous activities. Next week, I get to present a research paper at an academic conference. This shouldn't be a big deal for someone who talked on the air to hundreds of thousands of people at a time for decades, but it is. I am having the most horrific case of stage fright.

Anyway, the preparations for all this have eaten up every spare moment, including the time I would ordinarily spend blogging, eating meals at home, and, uh, housecleaning. Yes, the dust bunnies are back, and they are considering forming a barricade around the vacuum cleaner.

Meanwhile, the semester has reached the point where everyone on campus appears to be going through early-onset middle age. We have about a month of classes left before finals, and all the students are beginning to realize just how much work they need to complete in the next three weeks. This is also the time in the semester when the younger students begin to have emotional crises: broken hearts and hurt feelings abound just when so many people are tired out, anxious, and overwhelmed by their schedules.

The only way out is forward, both for the younger students and for me. We all need to get some sleep. Then, tomorrow morning, I'll clean up my study area, sort out all the papers and scripts for the conference, and start on the final write-through of the presentation script, the first draft of a paper for a panel discussion, and the creation of a new PowerPoint presentation on objectification. Oh, and a critical bibliography with its own PowerPoint slide. Then I get to start on the routine homework, including a paper on a bizarre poem by Robert Browning.

This is all going to seem so easy a year from now. And so worth it.

Sheepishly Gazing into the Future

2010-09-26T15:38:00.000-07:00

Lately I haven't been able to put a foot right with some people. I can't help pissing them off, even though I desperately want to avoid doing so. As a result, I found myself in the Abbey church yesterday, praying for a way forward after college. If humans fail you, ask God. Perhaps one symptom of my flaws is that I don't ask Him for guidance before I talk to my mentors.

Anyway, I was sitting there, feeling like a particularly woolly-headed sheep, when it finally came to me: there is a path ahead for me, beyond this four-year degree, but I may not get to see where it is going until much later. Of course, my ultimate goal, as with any philosopher with a Christian bent, is to reach the highest good -- to be one with God. That doesn't mean that I should go out and try to get run over by a bus, but it does mean that I know what the goal is. I just don't know what the plan is in the meantime.

For now at least, I have to give up on the idea of seeing much further than the next few steps along the path: get the four papers due this week and next completed, finish the papers for the upcoming academic conference, try to make my senior thesis make some kind of sense, and graduate next May 7.

By then, the path ahead will be a little clearer, I really hope. What usually happens is that someone says something that sets off a little chime in my heart, and I know that that idea is leading toward what I ought to do next. As I finish my last two semesters, I'll have to keep listening for that chime.

It makes me sad to think of leaving SMU, where I'm content, and where I have the privilege of learning new things on a daily basis. Oddly enough, it makes me so happy to complete each step toward graduation and, I guess, departure, because each step is a marker of another thing learned.

Speaking of which, I need to finish another short paper and a four-pager before I go to campus for compline this evening. Talk to you soon!

Inspiration: Taking it as Far as You Can

2010-09-22T06:38:00.000-07:00

When I lost 40 pounds, an acquaintance kept telling me what an inspiration I was. Skeptic that I am, I didn't believe her because she was busily wiping the whipped cream from her double-tall-full-fat-mocha-latte-with-a-shot-of-caramel from her upper lip at the time. Still, she meant it as a compliment.

Now I hear the same word from people in my age group talking about my decision to go back to school, and it makes me crazy. I want to be finished with my degree work so I can seek out more non-traditional students and convince them to come back to the classroom. What use is inspiration if it doesn't motivate people to make a change?

I still have to finish the bachelor's degree, and the master's, and, probably, the PhD. More immediately, I need to pass the first mid-term in American History before 1877 this morning, so I'll leave you with this:

If you are an employed adult, look at the course catalog for the nearest community college, university, or parks and rec center. Choose a class and take it. Get in the habit of showing up for every class meeting. Do the homework. Lather, rinse, repeat -- it will be a lot different than high school, and you'll find you like it a lot better. At the end of next year, you'll have completed five, maybe six courses -- maybe even enough to get you to a degree of some kind. Otherwise, by the end of next year, you'll have watched all the episodes of Glee!, Dancing with the Stars, and all the First 48 reruns. Plus, if you're the average American, you'll have gained several pounds with nothing to show for it.

If you are an unemployed adult, read the above paragraph again, and get thee to a college registrar's office. There are programs available specifically for people who need to retrain or to complete academic degrees. You'll never have more time on your hands, and you could be at the start of something big.

Only at St. Martin's

2010-09-17T17:38:00.000-07:00

After this posting, the SMU students majoring in engineering may never speak to me again. On the other hand, most of them don't anyway, since they spend all their time in a small building in the far corner of campus, plotting their takeover of the world, for all we know. As hard as they work at their studies, they'd probably run the world very well.

On the other hand, since most of them are taking 20 or more credits this semester, reading blogs is probably not high on their agendas.

Yesterday I was sitting alone at lunch. Mentor A had left to go shopping, leaving me to read as much as I could of the current American history assignment. I wasn't paying too much attention to anything outside the book until voices were raised at the nearby table full of future engineers. When I finally focused on what was going on, I realized they were shouting, laughing, and arguing about stories from the Old Testament. They were enjoying the discussion, too.

That tendency to discuss everything, spiritual and material, no matter what the students' major, isn't the only unusual thing about St. Martin's. While we admittedly have some people on campus -- both students and staff -- who focus mostly on their social lives, most of the students are interested in being good at what they're studying. To me this is a huge contrast to the public colleges and universities I've attended or worked for.

------------------------

In case you're wondering just what I'm up to between meals in the university's cafeteria, here's the current list:

I'm reading a lot of Shakespeare's Henriad and trying to synthesize the information into a senior thesis while polishing the paper that needs to go to the Death Panel before I present it at a conference in Oregon in November as I simultaneously study for the first mid-term exam in American history while I start reading Hegel and reviewing Book II of Plato's Republic before I create a PowerPoint presentation based on the ethics and imagery of "Jersey Shore" as I read and journal about two important Victorian essays. How is your weekend going?

Money Matters

2010-09-07T18:01:00.000-07:00

For the past month or so, I've been coping quietly with a stressful money situation. The wonderful company that is supposed to take some money out of my bank account every month to pay for my tuition has messed up in a big, big way. This, of course, has eaten up a lot of time, gasoline, and, as of today, the last of my patience.

This company, a subsidiary of a national bank and finance company, is demanding fees for what they claim is a late payment; the bank says the company never asked for the funds. The company also wants a fee for allowing a live person at their call center to talk with a representative of my bank. Now they want a fee for closing out my account because, according to their letter, I have dropped out of school and don't need to pay tuition anymore. This last bit of information was a complete surprise to me, and, as it turns out, the university, too.

By this time tomorrow, this whole problem will be resolved, and I will be back to my usual level of serenity. Student Accounts and I are on the same page, and the company in question will be left on their own page, where they can increase their own stress level. I no longer want to play with them.

What have I learned?

Look at the online comments about any company you are considering doing business with. Such comments may be prejudiced or inaccurate, but those comments about management, software, or hardware problems may give you areas to watch.
Know who the parent companies are, and look at the most recent occasions on which they were in the news or published their own news releases.
Calculate how much interest your tuition money will realize if you leave it in the bank for monthly withdrawal by a similar company. At today's interest rates, you may be better off, and happier, paying tuition in one lump sum when you register for classes.
Be aware of hidden fees. More and more companies now ding customers for the privilege of talking to someone in a call center who can't answer questions or enter agreements with consumers.
If you do terminate a business relationship with a similar company, make sure that the company no longer has access to your bank accounts.
Do something therapeutic after these time leeches have destroyed your afternoon, as they so enjoy.

Once I had made yet another trip to the bank today, I found cooking Chicken Normandy was enormously helpful. This particular recipe calls for browning chicken in bacon fat, and then sprinkling crispy bacon on top of the finished dish. The instructions also call for cream, Calvados, cider, butter, and apple slices. It tastes delicious, and what could be more therapeutic than that?

Poetry

2010-09-05T18:53:00.000-07:00

Last spring, I wrote my first poem in 40 years, for a class project. It was interesting enough to hold my attention until I had it edited and refined. I can't say that about every news story or marketing article I ever wrote. On the other hand, it was not an award winner. Since I know where my skills and talents lie, I thought that would be my last poem for another 40 years. Perhaps, though, I spoke to myself too soon.

Since the poem was graded, someone associated with the university commented on it favorably, which was nice to hear. Then, as I was stuck in traffic one day recently, it occurred to me that I may be able to explore some of my life experiences with poetry. I'm not really at ease discussing some things in prose.

For example, I was a lot closer to the Pentagon than anyone wanted to be on September 11, 2001. Nobody needs a direct, journalistic memoir of those days and nights in the smoke plume, but perhaps I can describe it symbolically in poetry more effectively. I don't really need to publish a poem about this, or the other news stories I either covered or got caught up in, but I do need to do some work on getting over them. I can't claim that I have post-traumatic stress disorder, but I do have some ghosts to exorcise. Perhaps the exercise of writing about these events in a symbolic way will help.

So, what does this have to do with going to school, since I'm not taking any classes in how to write poetry? At every university, unlike every workplace, you're likely to find communities that are interested in reading and writing poetry. You are also likely to find small groups that are into reading and writing short stories, novels, and histories, as well as research papers. You may also find much larger groups that are into beer and hard liquor, but as usual, participation in any group on a college campus is usually somewhat optional, especially if you live off campus. Anyway, while I may not want anyone to read my poems, I certainly will be able to find someone who can help me with ideas and techniques if I get mentally stuck.

And that, my dear, is what learning at the university level is all about.

First Day of School

2010-08-29T15:54:00.000-07:00

Here we are, less than 24 hours before the first day of class of the new academic calendar, and am I, a mature, thoughtful, self-assured adult, completely ready and fully prepared to attend every class and pay complete attention? Of course not.

Being an adult doesn't necessarily mean being mature in every facet of the personality. One part of me wants to just chill for a few days -- what some people might call a vacation. I suspect, though, that I'll be over this by tomorrow morning, and ready to start learning about American History before 1870, Teaching Composition, Victorian Prose and Poetry, Senior Thesis, and Ancient and Medieval Philosophers.

My inner 10-year-old is resisting the final fade of summer.

I think I'll go outside and turn over some rocks on the beach.

Personal Note: Happy 41st, Bobby. Wherever you are, live in joy.

Solitude

2010-08-25T16:42:00.000-07:00

In order to complete a college degree, especially if you're a single adult, you have to be able to adjust to a lot of time spent alone. For hours on end, it will be just you, a book, and a computer. You have to make that commitment to spend the time, even with the boring classes, in order to get to the goal, that degree that will open up some major new doors.

In the meantime, you're going to pass up on a lot of things that used to be important to you: Dancing with the Stars, Project Runway, start-to-finish coverage of the Masters, the Superbowl, whatever. You won't be going out to drinks and dinner with your buddies nearly so often. It may even happen that while everyone else in the family goes sight-seeing during winter vacation, you stay back at the motel room, reading and taking notes for the paper that's due the first week of school.

This can be hard for a lot of people. Skipping a birthday party can make you unpopular with some family members, who may not readily understand what's going on. I had an advantage: I had to move to enroll in school, so most people can't just drop by for dinner any more: my friends mostly live over 60 miles away. Plus, because I'm in school full time, and looking for a part-time job, I haven't had any time to meet new people away from campus.

Yes, it gets a little lonely. Going to school later in life isn't for everyone. On the other hand, by studying hard, staying with the books, and focusing on something a little more lasting than America's Got Talent, it can feel like you're joining something eternal.

Think back to all the scholars in the world who studied night after night, trying to understand the world around them. Bacon, Aquinas, Carroll, and a long parade of others, both legendary and unknown, confronted solitude and learned to live with it, in order to reach out to new fields of knowledge and conquer them. They studied through Whitman's "transparent night," and tried not to suffer from their aloneness.

I've become familiar with solitude, although I can't say it's my friend. It doesn't even like me, but I'm learning to turn it to my advantage. At times I even consider it a resource -- a quiet, calm place in the soul and in the home away from the noisy insanity of urban life. While I'm not about to become an anchoress, it's clear that solitude can help the mind and the spirit focus on what's real.

You may not ever become Albert Schweitzer, or even Douglas Adams, but if you have the chance to study, even if it means spending more time in solitude than you'd like, do it. The chance may not come again, and you may discover dimensions of solitude you might never otherwise recognize.

It's Still Not Too Late

2010-08-19T10:22:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back, I forgot an important possibility for anyone who wants to get started on a college degree, or just wants to get more education in their field of interest. My friend Emilie, via Facebook, reminds me that there is still another alternative to appearing on your chosen college campus every week. Use what's right in front of you to take classes online.

St. Martin's University, the school I'm attending, offers an ever-growing list of online classes, as many private, non-profit colleges do. More classes become available every semester as professors discover that people do learn online, and that teaching this way can be productive for the instructor as well. Students who participate in this kind of instruction successfully are motivated and interested -- which describes you, right?

This type of instruction is also available through state-funded schools like the University of Washington, Washington State University, and the community college system. These schools have a lot going for them: they cost less than similar programs available through for-profit schools, like the ones advertised on television, and the public and non-profit private colleges are accredited.

Accreditation is very important if someday you hope to actually get a degree. The for-profit school are not usually accredited, so any work you do through them is never going to be added to your transcript as you pursue an academic degree.

Also, student recruitment at the for-profit schools tends to be through what's called the marketing department.

Online classes at a university will still require the whole application and enrollment process, but once you've filled out most of those forms, you won't have to do it again. You'll be able to work on your studies as you have time, and you'll be able to ask questions via email or dedicated Web sites set up for each class. Scholarships are available in some programs.

While some distance learning does require that you show up on campus occasionally, that depends on what you are studying. For example, the University of Washington School of Nursing distance learning program for ARNPs calls for some face time with the instructor, but some classes like introductory philosophy from Centralia College are totally online.

This is a way to get all those irritating required classes in math and botany out of the way before you start going to the campus for those advanced classes in your major. You do not have to take all the online classes from the same school, as long as you're willing to pay for separate official transcripts from each one when you apply for admission at the school where you finally get your degree.

So, are you going over to Google right now to look for your next online class, or what?

The Senior Thesis

2010-08-15T13:26:00.000-07:00

The first day of the fall semester is still two weeks away, but already the senior thesis has caused me a little misery. I thought I had a dandy field chosen last spring. I was going to read up on American detective novels of the 1920s and develop a really interesting argument about how the mystery and the private eye matured along with the post-war generation. You know, academic but accessible and maybe even innovative.

My initial research was fun. I learned that the mystery novel evolved over the course of the 19th century, starting with a French author, closely followed by Edgar Allen Poe. They were both inspired by a real life detective named Vidoq. Before the likes of Sam Spade hit the publishing world, the mystery novel evolved through the Victorian era, including a nasty mass of literature known as the sensation novel. In those, there was someone who was sort of like a detective, but the solution to the mystery usually included a ghost or other supernatural influence. And the hero who got the virginal girl in the final chapter was always someone other than the detective, since police officers were far too blue-collar to be heroes, according to the 19th century literati.

As I may have noted elsewhere on this blog, things change. On the advice of one of my advisers, I've discarded my former thesis area. All the books went back to the library, and I started ordering another pile of books on the Elizabethan era. The idea is to take advantage of the expertise of my thesis adviser, who is a renowned Elizabethan scholar, and my previous research and current studies of classical and medieval ethics.

So why am I telling you all this? As I was building the new wall of reference materials, I took a look around my own books, and was surprised just how much material I already had on hand. Besides the usual Complete Works of Shakespeare, I have an anthology of English literature from high school that holds a lot of Tudor poems, a lavishly illustrated Tudor history from last year's dramatic literature class, two Antonia Fraser histories of women's lives, a second-hand Latin phrase book that could come in handy . . . and more material on Elizabethan menus and cuisine than I care to think about. In other words, virtually every period of study in my life will be represented in the bibliography of this humongous paper, just as every era of study in my life is represented in my experience on the college campus.

My thesis adviser wants to see a thesis soon, he says. So do I: writing the argument statement has always been the weakest and most problematic part of writing a major paper. Although I may not know exactly what I'll be writing, it feels good to know that this capstone paper will represent such a large part of my life, as represented by all these books I've carried around for so long.

Ready for School?

2010-08-04T07:52:00.000-07:00

We're well into the first week in August, and somewhere an adult is saying, "It's too late for me to head back to school this year. I can't register and compete for classes, my kids aren't ready for me to do this, how would I work this into my job schedule, the university doesn't want to even talk to someone like me . . ." You may be familiar with the arguments against going back to school this fall. You may be repeating them to yourself on an hourly basis, in between the chores and errands. You have to start remembering the biggest truth you learned when you became the grown-up in the house: reasons are only excuses.

I think I'm in a position now to counter some of the excuses bouncing around in those doubting heads. A year ago, when I started this blog, I had no idea how school would go for me as an older adult. There were a lot of elements mitigating against my success, mostly in my own head. Despite a rocky start at Freshman Orientation, school turned out to be the best thing I ever did for myself and, I hope, the community around me.

As far as it being too late to apply, register, and get into classes, that may be true at some schools. The trick is to find some advocates who want to see you on campus. As a non-traditional student, you may find that advocate in Campus Ministry, the Women's Program, within the department that governs your major, or even in a program specifically for seniors or other non-traditional students. Go online and look.

Universities welcome and even embrace non-traditional students. We offer perspective, maturity, historical depth, and experience to what's going on in the classroom. We know what professors' office hours are for, we know the value of time, and we've developed good work habits. Professors find these qualities refreshing, and they want to help students who have clearly established their goals. They also like talking to students who recognize some of their cultural references.

Your fellow students, by the way, won't all be as young as you think. While the majority are living on campus, many are living off campus, working part- or full-time, and dealing with responsibilities you know well. They may be your best prospects for study groups. The younger students for the most part will be friendly and interesting to talk with -- and you don't have to go to all the campus events.

You may be thinking there's no money to pay tuition. Go to the finance pages on college Web sites. Talk to the finance office, too -- there are tuition discounts available at some schools. Check out grants and scholarships offered by your employer, and talk to Human Relations at work. HR departments can be an amazing resource for the non-traditional student. They can also help you work out the logistics of getting to and from class while not screwing up your job or the relationship with your colleagues. Your immediate supervisor can be a great help, too. Of the three supervisors who knew of my desire to return to college, only one actually created obstacles; oddly enough, this was at the University of Washington.

As far as your family is concerned, sometimes it can help to talk it all out. While I have no direct experience with raising children and going to school, I know it gets done. Enlist your kids in the process, so that you're all doing homework together, and share chores, so you're all working together. It sounds Utopian, but your family and you can make it happen. Your spouse is there as a part of the team, and should be supportive of your efforts to make life better for the entire family. Parents are supportive of children, and children like the chance to be supportive of their parents. You have to give each other the opportunity to help.

As a single older adult student, the main drawback in attending college is the isolation. Studying requires a lot of focused time for reading and writing. Between classes, work, and studying, you can find that your social life goes to zero. This can be painful at times; often I get to the end of a day of concentrated work and wish someone was there to talk with. The problem is that by that point the fatigue is so heavy that even going out for coffee is impossible. Luckily, at that point I'm ready to go to sleep. Additionally, I have a lot of friends online who are glad to exchange short notes -- that really helps!

You may have more reasons and doubts about returning to school this fall or in January. Send me a note and maybe I can make some suggestions. The point is, you can do this -- you just have to figure out the way that works for you.

Transcending Summer Session

2010-07-29T13:28:00.000-07:00

After several weeks of concentrated work, summer session is over. The professor liked the papers I wrote about the Transcendentalists, so I'm optimistic about my grade. More importantly, I learned how these American poet-philosophers fit into the development of both the American character and of philosophy around the world.

While I haven't evicted Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman from the house entirely, it's been refreshing to put them aside for a few days. It was fun to revisit them so many years after high school, but I'm glad my senior thesis won't be about Thoreau and his influence on the 21st century perception of nature.

Speaking of the senior thesis, we have our first assignment, and one of my classmates is having a senior thesis party next week. I'm not sure if beer, notebooks, or both are involved in this kind of celebration, so it will probably be a learning experience.

Things Change

2010-07-23T17:27:00.000-07:00

Perfection is purely temporary. Whenever we are sad, happy, serene, delighted, or shocked, we are experiencing a transient state of mind, a temporary mood or emotion. Inside our heads, we humans are on something like an endless family road trip -- always en route to another state of mind.

Life itself is not permanent. It only seems that way sometimes, and often it comes back to bite us when we assume otherwise. This week, another friend discovered that she may not be with us much longer, and that soon her quality of life may not be what anyone would wish.

This news breaks my heart, and it set me to crying many hours after she told me, despite all the hours I've spent reading about philosophy and religious faith.

I have to get past the pain, though, if I'm to be any use to her, her family, and all our mutual friends. It would be so pleasant if we could just hire someone to do the suffering for us, but that's the way people develop drug and alcohol problems. The best way to handle this, I guess, is by reading all I can about this particular kind of cancer, and doing a lot of prayer. I'll ask for comfort and strength for her, and guidance for myself, so that I can do the most good in this situation.

This looks like another one of those maturational learning experiences. I hate growing up.

Dustoy . . . Distoev . . . Dostio . . . Dostoevsky, Maybe

2010-07-19T18:36:00.000-07:00

For complex personal reasons, including a finely developed sense of the value of procrastination, I tend to read something completely unrelated to schoolwork alongside all the serious stuff. While I've been closely reading Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, and assorted crime novel critics, I've also been reading a little fiction. The funny thing is, whenever anyone sees what I'm reading during lunch, their noses wrinkle up.

On campus, the question is always, "What class are you reading that for?" Off campus, people just sort of back away quietly. In all cases, they definitely don't want to know anything about the book I'm carrying around. And I worry that their noses may stay wrinkled permanently.

So, what's so bad about Dostoevsky? Crime and Punishment is an interesting story about what guilt does to someone who commits a crime -- a double murder -- for what he considers philosophical reasons, and then discovers that he is capable of suffering from his own guilt. Raskolnikov, the criminal and primary character, is both a nihilist and narcissistic, and justifies his plan before the crime by misapplying the principles of utilitarianism. He figures that destroying someone he dislikes will improve society as a whole. He discovers that the murder of a little old lady and her mentally-impaired sister doesn't improve his world, and that the effort to cover up his offense is beyond his capacity.

That's as far as I've read so far. I can see why some people are intimidated by the book: there are certainly a lot of -isms involved, since at least two of the characters are current or former college students. Russian personal names and place names are unfamiliar, and Dostoevsky has a reputation for being difficult, challenging, and unrelentingly gloomy. Fortunately, most of his reputation is false, like most reputations.

With the benefit of a good translator, Dostoevsky brings his characters to life. Each one has his or her own speaking rhythm, vocabulary, and tone, and you can feel what it would be like to live in their skins. They have worries, affections, hates, and hopes -- like real people, rather than characters in a novel that you'll forget.

Admittedly, the book is sad, since the main characters are poor and unhealthy, living in rundown tenement apartments where life is brutish and short. If you were Tolstoy, though, you'd have the answer for that problem. He wrote, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." The other answer is, life is different from a cheerful picnic in the park, and so is Crime and Punishment.

I took some advice from another devoted reader and dug up the Spark Notes on the book, so I could keep track of the names and some of the plot twists. I started by reading the Spark Notes and then reading the book itself. With only 200 pages to go, I've pretty much dropped the Spark Notes, since I've finally got the names sorted.

Is it worth spending the free time this summer on this heavy, heavy book? Yes.

Am I more likely to remember this book long beyond the time I would recall the typical beach read? You'd better believe it.

After all, education is supposed to open the mind to new experiences, and old Russian novels are certainly new to me.

Uncle George

2010-07-13T09:30:00.000-07:00

We all have regrets. There are places we'll never visit, art we'll never see, people we'll never meet, dearly loved relatives and teachers we'll never talk with again in this world. Like that sappy old pop song says, "I always thought I'd see you again." In the case of George L. Meshke, I always figured that I'd look him up sometime when I was in Yakima.

Of course, George was the best and most challenging high school teacher I ever had, and of course I never valued him as much as I should have.

Beyond teaching us English and Drama, he provided a refuge for a group of '60s high school kids who needed somewhere to focus their energies, somewhere away from difficult home lives. George was always gentle, always thoughtful, and always demanding. He set rules and expected us to follow them, when other teachers on the same campus just hoped we would do the assignments and leave them alone. And he always opened up new vistas for us, by assigning extra work, by developing new ideas, by being willing to face up to the school board when they worried we were getting into plays that were too modern for our own good. For some reason, the board found "Marat/Sade" to be dangerous, while it beamed approval over our production of "Auntie Mame," with its drinking, smoking, and discussions of free love.

Eventually a parent in the Federal Way school district demanded that George be fired, because he was sure that George had to be gay. I wouldn't know -- George's sexuality was never any of my business. George went off to teach at Yakima Valley Community College, and to amass honors from national and international organizations. I should add that he eventually added a PhD. to his name, and that he was richly appreciated by generations of students and audiences.

The inspiring teacher we always called Uncle George died in June at University of Washington Medical Center. I hope to God he wasn't alone, and that the people who were with him cherished him more than this student knew how.

And I also hope that if you have a teacher in your past who inspired, sheltered, and challenged you, that you send him or her a card, or call, or stop by to see if they need anything. We always assume we'll have the chance to do that later -- and someday our assumptions will be wrong.

Once you've done that, go teach someone something.