Melissa Brindley: What I Learned About Returning to College Later in Life

I was in my thirties when I decided to go back to college. I spent years working what felt like dead-end retail jobs at stores like Hallmark and Hollywood Video, and it seemed as if each store I worked in eventually went out of business. It happened so many times, my friends started calling me the Grim Reaper of Retail. I felt like I needed to do something to get myself into a career with a good future. I had always wanted to be a writer, but years of hearing there was “no money in writing” made me afraid I couldn’t make a career out of it. My mom suggested I pursue a business degree because it was practical—something I could use in a variety of ways. I enrolled at Mt. Hood Community College since it was only two miles away from my home and it shared a strong transfer degree program with Eastern Oregon University.  I was excited about going back to school but when the first day of fall term arrived, I told my husband I was nervous.

“What if the other kids don’t like me?” I asked, only half-joking. Would I be confronted with a roomful of recent high school graduates wondering what I was doing there?

I was in for a surprise that day when I saw that my classmates covered an impressively wide age range—from teenagers fresh out of high school to people in their sixties pursuing a second college degree. As my very first Business 101 class ended, I heard someone call my name and looked up to see an acquaintance from high school bustling toward me. It turns out she had decided to go back to college at the exact same time I had. The moment I saw her, I felt like the universe was telling me I was in the right place at the right time.

Since then, I’ve learned there are a lot of benefits of returning to school later in adulthood. To begin with, I appreciate the opportunity more now than I did in my late teens. I no longer think of going to school as something I have to do; I think of it as something I get to do. I get to go to class, I get to study, and I get to learn new things. Having a more positive attitude also means I’m able to focus on studying more easily now than I was able to  in the past.

After spending years working thankless jobs, I find myself  more invested in my education, which has made my classes more interesting and rewarding than they were when I was eighteen. I also know myself better now than I did back then. When I was younger, I lacked direction and took random classes that didn’t really amount to much in terms of a degree. But I’ve had a lot of time to think about what would really be fulfilling for me. In addition to getting that “practical” business degree, I decided I also wanted to get a degree in English so I could pursue my dream of working in publishing. I started with Intro to Fiction Writing, and rediscovered my love of storytelling through writing exercises and peer reviews. I learned how to close read, and developed a deeper understanding of classic texts like Beowulf, Doctor Faustus, and Macbeth. as I moved on to courses in Shakespeare and British Literature. I realized there’s a huge reward to an English degree. The experience has helped me develop valuable skills in analysis, communication, collaboration, and creative thinking—all of which can be used in a variety of careers. Marketing, sales, human resources, international relations, and management are all areas of business that require skills that can be learned in the English department.

Returning to school to pursue a long-time aspiration seems to be a common experience among older students who have finally figured out what they want to be now that they’re grown up. Which brings me to the most important thing I’ve discovered about returning to college later in life: I’m not alone. According to the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA), 28 percent of first generation college students are thirty or older. These students have chosen to go back to school for a variety of reasons, whether it’s to finish their education, get a second degree, or because they don’t ever want to stop learning. In the words of George Eliot, “It is never too late to be what you might have been.”