The educational lifestyle of this post-traditional student has been unexpected, to say the least.

I remember telling my 15-year old son at the time, I was going back to college. His response was, “Mom, no offense, but I think you are too old for college.” I tried to explain to him older people go back to school all the time to complete an education.

After all, I had quit as a Sophomore and then went back at 24 to take two more semesters. This was not a huge or noticeable age difference at the time.

My son was right, going back to school at 49 was quite a different challenge. Back in the day, I was used to turning in a hand-written paper, literally, in paper form. Not so anymore.  I had to teach myself the basics of Word, and stayed up many nights crying in frustration because I could not get Word to understand the formatting of APA.

In my first FTF (face-to-face) class, I noticed there was another lady there close to my age, we sat together and talked about class, and about our children, which made it less anxious for me. She ended up taking 15 hours that semester and graduated.

In my next FTF class, I was the oldest.  When we were standing in line to get a research topic from the professor, about three young gentlemen students said to me, “Go ahead, ma’am.”

Ma’am?  That was confirmation, despite their efforts to be kind. I recall a couple of events I attended where I pulled out my student ID and was told to “Go ahead….oh, you’re a student?” I also remember a class where the professor was trying to show us a YouTube video and an ad for soap popped up of a 30-something woman in the shower. The young professor said, “Oh I’m sorry, I’m sure the last thing you wanted to see was an old lady taking a shower!”

In my Public Speaking class, I had chosen to write a press release about the UT sniper in 1966. From the distant looks and the yawning, I realized I needed to consider my younger audience. So, my next speech was about “college hazing”, in which the audience seemed quite interested. So, in presentations, I’ve learned to “young-down”.

I recently asked a professor in class why book titles are no longer underlined. He replied, “Awhile back, typewriters had to use underlines because they were unable to italicize.” Embarrassed, I realized I had just publicly dated myself back to the era of typewriters.

I am very excited, though, because my son will be graduating from high school this same year I graduate from college. I am quite sure he will be relieved I will be done when he starts college this fall!

If there happens to be a “traditional” student reading this, my best advice is not to quit college, finish while you are still young.