First day of school
January 2015
Susan Fullmer
ENGL 201
Sktech #4, The
College Experience
3/16/2017
My Fundamental Transformation Concerning
the Inner Self
Being 56 years old, and having returned to
college after 33 years, I have been most interested in the subject of the older,
non-traditional student. When I first
started back two years ago, I even started a blog to try and make sense of this
most unusual event in my life. Though I
have seen older students on campus from time to time, I have rarely spoken to
any of them. Is my experience unique, or
are we all going through a similar experience?
What I found surprising and discouraging, when initially looking for research
on this subject, is that I didn’t find very much information. The search words, “non-traditional student”
brings up subjects such as, husband’s thoughts on supporting wives in school,
students with disabilities, the needs of women returning to school, and
returning immigrants and delinquents.
How discouraging. And when I did find
an article about the older student returning to school, the example they gave
was of a forty-five year old, practically a child!
I finally found an article by Nancy
Shields called, “The Link Between Student Identity, Attributions and
Self-Esteem Among Adult, Returning Students”.
Really? Self-Esteem? Is that all we have to worry about? Oh well, I guess it’s a start. Personally, self-esteem hasn’t been much of an
issue at this point of my life. I just
don’t give a fuck. I do my thing. Because at this point, I know what my thing
is and it works for me. But if I’m going
to be honest with myself, I will admit that my confidence took a waver when
returning to school. All of a sudden, my
footing didn’t seem so sure. And then
there was the Pandora’s Box of examining why I never got a bachelor’s degree in
the first place. Ms. Shields states, “Leaving
college was conceptualized as a “failure” in the sense that the student had
failed to complete a degree when previously enrolled…after a break of at least
three semesters”. Now try compounding
that sense of failure after 33 years.
Maybe in this, I do give a fuck.
I was perusing my early-day blogs while
preparing to write this paper and came across this gem. I realized that even trying to figure out if
they used paper in school anymore, was making me feel unsure of myself. I wrote, “I was going through some old boxes
yesterday and found a ream of lined, notebook paper and my immediate thought
was, “score, I can use this for school!”
Second immediate thought, “Do they even use lined notebook paper in
school anymore?” I have no idea. It’s these little unknowns that make me feel
so off balanced right now.” http://thematurestudent54.blogspot.com/2015/01/dont-you-love-my-profile-picture-truth.html
My curiosity about how my experience
compares to others lead me to O’Shea Stone’s article on mature aged women’s
reflections on returning to university studies.
She used such words as “transformation” and “self-discovery”. She followed 18 “mature-aged students”
returning to school. She found that they
had considerable self-doubt and lack of confidence. There are those words again. If this endeavor to rejoin higher education
causes or exacerbates shaky self-esteem.
Why do we do it? Why?
There are many good reasons for going to
school. And there are many difficulties inherent
for all students. Ms. Stones speaks of
her research subjects as meeting those challenges and in turn finding a “fundamental
transformation concerning the inner self”.
As I read through my blog I can see that a similar fundamental
transformation happened to me. It was
slow at first as stated in this blog.
I’m having less moments of sudden panic
where my mind is racing and all I can think is, “where am I and what the hell
am I doing here?” And I am definitely
less lost. I no longer leave a building
debating whether to pull out my map to see if I should turn left or right to
get to my next destination. Life is so
much easier when I know which way to head.
How is that for a life analogy! http://thematurestudent54.blogspot.com/2015/02/less-moments.html
And the slow
climb to self-confidence at school continues.
I was eating lunch in the SUB today and
looking out the window at this beautiful campus when all of a sudden this
feeling came soaking into me. In words,
the saturation went something like this, “You belong here”. It is just occurring to me that I am no
longer the interloper, the pretender, the fake.
http://thematurestudent54.blogspot.com/2015/09/no-longer-interloper.html
I didn’t know if I could make this whole
school thing work, but I tried it anyway.
I have learned much, and gained much from the trying. Ms. Stone said, “These narratives of
achievement and transformation ultimately provide inspiration to other women
contemplating such a step as well as insight for academic administrators and
teaching staff regarding the significant personal change this decision can
engender”. If I could encourage just one
older person to return to school, if I could encourage just one professor to
see their older student in a unique way, if I could show the younger students
we are far more similar that different, then I am glad. I offer my “fundamental transformation
concerning the inner self” up to whomever it may benefit.
Works Cited
“Diversity in
the Graduate Student Population.” Journal
of College Student
Psychotherapy,
vol. 14, no. 2, 2000, pp. 57-70., doi:10.1300/j035v14n02_07.
Fullmer, Susan
L. “The Mature Student.” The Mature
Student,
thematurestudent54.blogspot.com.
O’Shea, S.Stone
C. “Transformations and Self-Discovery: Mature-Age Women’s Reflections on
Returning
to University Study.” Studies in
Continuing Education, Routledge. Available from:
Taylor
& Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Web
Site:
Http//Www.tandf.co.uk/Journals, 30 Nov. 2010,
eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ949331.
Shields, Nancy.
“The Link between Student Identity, Attributions, and Self-Esteem among
Adult, Returning Students.” Sociological Perspectives, vol. 38, no.
2, 1995, pp. 261-272.
