As I rapidly approach the last semester of my college
tenure, I thought I would share some of my thoughts and experiences for those
of you considering college as the beginning of a second-career, or any Gen-X
that are thinking about getting a film degree.
My own journey back to higher education had more to do with
starting a new career in the creative arts. I had worked for Corp America for
the previous two decades and was yearning for something more imaginative. The
first thing I did before making the leap was to research the cost of the
schools closest to me. I found that even though it is still comparatively
inexpensive to attend a public junior college, it is not cheap, especially if
you intend to go full-time. Four-year colleges are even more expensive.
In other words, if you are not independently wealthy, and
your credit is average or below, and you want to attend school full-time, start
doing research into everything from loans to grants to scholarships
(www.fafsa.ed.gov). Money and time are the most important factors to your
success as a student. If you want to do well in school and you have not been in
a true academic environment as a student for 10 – 20 years, chances are that
you are going to need some time to re-adjust to not only your studies, but the
change to your daily routine, your relationships and perhaps, your standard of
living. For me, going back to school meant a decrease in salary, (I was making $90,000 a
year at GE and now make about $24,000), and adjustment in living arrangements,
(I used to live in a 3500 sq. ft. house, I now live with a roommate in a 1200
sq. ft. apartment).
While these may sound like extreme changes, to me they were
just the cost of doing business. I wanted my return to college to be as
unencumbered as possible and was willing to sacrifice to make that goal a
reality. The result has been a cumulative GPA of 3.85 over the course of my
re-entry career, and a body of academic achievement that should help me to land
a decent job or internship after I graduate.
Of course, this does not mean that you can’t achieve as much
or more by devoting less time and effort to your studies. Or, that your
experience in college will require any change to your daily routine or
circumstances. The point is that returning to school is not as simple as
enrolling in classes and paying the tuition. It takes time, effort, and some
measure of sacrifice to succeed regardless of the type of degree you are
pursuing. I have seen more re-entry students fail because they could not
adequately adjust their lives to the demands of their educational goals than
for any other reason.
So before you get out the course catalog and start choosing
the classes you will take next semester, take some time to assess your current
living situation and support network; try to identify areas that will require
adjustment and then make the necessary arrangements. If there is one advantage
that we have as mature adults over our Gen Y, Z classmates it is the ability to
anticipate and plan for problems before they arise. You will find that this skill
will come in very handy throughout your re-entry career but never as much as
before you attend your first class.
Next week, I will share my impressions of the college
experience as a whole and some of the challenges we face as older students in a Gen Y and Z world.
