I am finaly a college freshman. After taking an 8 year “break”, after highschool, I have finally set forth on voyage to higher learning. Shit!!! I’m actually scared shitless. Think of all of the things I’ve forgotten.
Honestly, I’m afraid I’ll embarrass myself. I know there are people much older than me returning to college. I keep telling myself “Frock…(because I refer myself by my internet handle, when speaking to myself)…you’re just being a big pussy” I suppose I’m just being silly.
Has anyone been through this already? Did you find yourself struggling alot, in the beginning? What’s a good way to review some of the basics. Math , grammer, etc…I’m sure it’ll all come back to me, eventually. I hope.
I went back to college to finish my degree after about a 15 year hiatus, so I’ve been through this scene. Believe me, you won’t have any problems competing with the recent graduates, your distant memories of math etc will be more than compensated for by the short attention spans of the teenagers. Age and experience is a significant advantage.
I didn’t take too long a break anywhere in my schooling (although I’m up for a regular course in the fall, after more years than I can count), but I do work at a college, and get to see the “mature students” coming back. It’s always a big shock for them during the first term (“What? Study? Essays? Ack!”), but once they’re past that they almost always do a lot better overall than the high-schoolers.
Just stick with it a few months, and you’ll be able to coast through the rest with no big problems.
Speaking for a former freshy staight from high school, you’ll be fine. You guys might be right that a more mature student will do better than someone my age, but remember college is also supposed to be a time to have fun.
It will help that you’re now old enough to view the instructor/professor as just another human being, as opposed to the way that we warden/prisoner relationship that we often had with teachers in high school. I got my Masters while working at HP, and the following sort of exchange occurred several times:
Me: We’re in the middle of a big push at work. Any chance of me turning in the assignment on Monday instead of Friday?
Prof: No problem.
Similarly, I negotiated the terms of assignments–could I do it in this language instead of that, or do a similar problem that was of interest to me, etc.
Hey frock, pal (or gal, I don’t know), I had a similar experience of graduating high school at 17 and then deciding to go to college at 22 (some jolly and not-so-jolly years in between). It was a great experience!
First off, unlike my manny peers in the frosh classes, I was (as I’m supposing you might be) not attending school 'cause daddy said I had to. Older students tend to be more motivated, and instructors appreciate them. And you’re probably paying you’re own way (or at least, whatever arrangements have been made have little to do with parental edicts).
It was a little intimidating to be back in the classroom - at first. That didn’t last long. The weight of your life experience will soon become apparent to you when held to the light of your younger mates. As to the areas where I thought I’d become rusty, I went ahead and took a semester introductory course in a couple of subjects that I’d had experience with just to get back up to speed. I’d taken four years of French in high school, but with the five year gap to consider, I took (and easily aced) the second semester of first year French before I jumped into the upper division accelerated course. I also took pre-calculus again just to be primed for the rest. I knew I’d not used, and thus forgotten, the material.
So, I pursued an ecletic curriculum and wended my way way into a satisfying career (as a geophysicist) that I’d never even heard of when I tossed the blue collar world for the National Lampoon experience.
Caveats to be applied to my view include that I don’t know if you’re off on a quest for a Renaissance view or are just now trying your wings as an explorer or are, perhaps, in some kind of deadline run with a financial instrument to get X professional degree accomplished in Y amount of time.
Anyway, it will be refreshing for a bit, at least. Good luck to you frock75!
Thanks guys. I appreciate the responses. One thing is for sure, I’ll appreciate it more than the average freshman would. I’m paying for it with my hard earned cash. On top of this, I have the usual outside world responsabilities. Car payments and insurance, rent, health insurance, monthly utilities, two cats and a girlfriend. I’m going to earn this.
I just finished a year long teacher certification program after five years in the work force, and I’ve got to say, that those five years made a big difference.
I had a more realistic notion of what my own and my professors’ standards were. I knew what I could and couldn’t do, and so I could plan things out a little bit. My interests were much more well defined. I was able to draw on real life experience and make connections between the curriculum I was learning and previous work I had done.
I understood the politics of the program, the professors, my fellow students, and the student teaching programs much, much better.
And I was able to enjoy myself even during the rough times.
I’m sure you’ll be fine, you’ll be surprised what comes back to you. Guess what, I learned a couple of weeks ago that I can still read spanish quite well, despite not having done any reading or speaking of it for almost six years. If not for having to translate some student responses, I might not have realized that the knowledge was still pretty much intact despite not using it.
I like the “going back” spirit of this thread. So far I’ve put off getting my masters for two years since I still don’t know what I want to get it in. I could get an MED or an MET(the problem being what level I want to teach), or maybe a masters in creative writing…heck, I wouldn’t mind getting all three if I could afford it; I loved being a student.
Actually, I think that’s the reaction that almost all students have, regardless of how long they’ve been away from school.
I agree with Chas.E too. My mom was out of school for 17 years before returning to get her degree in psychology. She found it a great deal easier than she expected.
I started back to college about 19 years after I earned my bachelor’s degree. I wasn’t after any particular degree, just cherry-picking the courses I wanted. It wasn’t that big a deal after about the first week. The profs and instructors appreciate people who are more focused and interested in what they have to offer, and the coeds look even prettier the 2nd time around! I didn’t try to date any of 'em, though. First, Missus Coder would frown on that, and besides, I’m at that age where I’m invisible to teenagers. I didn’t even register on their radar. [sub]Sigh…[/sub]