College at 50

Today’s On Her Way post, written by guest author Cyn Huddleston, is Part 2 of her story. You can read Part 1 here.

 

My seatmates were chatty and nice in Spanish class. It’s my mom’s birthday. She’s 33. I listened as I got my computer booted up. Then it hit me.

“Hey,” I said, “did you say 33?” She had. “If I had birthed your mom at 16, I am old enough to be your grandmother.”

Ay dios mio.

I was always the oldest student in the room in my undergrad years. Thankfully, my local community college represents a wider cross-section of the city. Plenty of my peers were in their 30s or 40s. I grew to admire the typical working student – married or single mother, working full time, with children and sometimes an aging parent, and still scoring top grades. Grateful to be an empty-nester with a husband to support me, I vowed to use my powers for good, creating study sheets and holding review sessions. My age didn’t matter so much at community college.

The scene was different after transferring to university, where I was classified as a non-traditional student who hadn’t come straight from high school. Texas Lutheran University is a small private school in a city of about 27,000 people outside of San Antonio. Nearly all of the students I met during my first weeks there were of typical college age, 18 to 24. That put nearly 30 years between us. Often, I was older than the professor. These students were talking about pledging fraternities and sororities, going to parties, and who was cute in the class. I felt markedly different, distinctly other. Somehow, I had to find a way to make them my peers.

As it turned out, I didn’t have to rely on some complicated social construct I had learned in sociology class back in community college. I didn’t change my hair or clothes, although I did buy a nice sweatshirt in the school colors. I simply ignored the difference.

Far from hiding my head in the sand, I purposefully focused on classes, grades, and assignments. Conversations centered around which professor was hard to get along with and which was helpful, or on how to find a reference journal in the online database at the library. I joined some activities – tutoring writing students, copy editing the newspaper and magazine – renewing my vow to use my powers for good.

I found out later that the students responded to my work ethic. Natalie said they first saw me as “untraditional” and a “know-it-all,” but later came to see that the only thing untraditional about me was my “work ethic and drive,” and that I was more motivated than the younger students. Bill noticed that I seemed to be “more of a student” than typical younger people, who were told to get a degree for real job. I made great connections at TLU, and Bill and Natalie are still friends today.

I had gone back to school because it was the one thing I had always wanted but hadn’t done. So I acted like a student, albeit a dedicated, non-partying one whose husband wouldn’t allow her to date. I knew I belonged at college no matter my age, so I operated on the premise that everyone else would see that.

And it worked out just fine. People accepted me. If my age came up, we laughed about it. I remember one late night in the newspaper office when I held up my recently-acquired AARP card along with my student ID for a photo. I was the only person on campus with that distinction. However, I had one important thing in common with all of my peers. We were working toward a diploma, and we were working very hard.

I turned 50 as a senior in college. It wasn’t easy, but I imagine there are more 50-something women who are up to the challenge I took on. If your desire for more education is strong, go get it. Sure, I will be paying for student loans until I am an old woman – one very happy old woman with not only a BA in English but an MA as well.

 

Cyn Huddleston lives in Universal City, TX with her husband Adrian, cats Zelda Fitzgerald and Deacon, and a good old dog named Preacher. She fills her days with pets, friends, and writing. She has no holes in her good life.