College Class Planned on Waiting

¶ … College Class planned on waiting a few years to attend college; then I waited a few more to devote my full time to raising a family; as my family matured I started pursuing a career; the next thing I knew, I was in my forties and still wanting a college degree! I vowed to accomplish this feat without neglecting my other duties, as a parent and a worker, and I enrolled in courses beginning this semester.

I feel that my job as a parent is my most important obligation. That said, I believe that I am capable of balancing several duties with the important role I play to my family. In the past, I have been able to juggle many tasks-working, travel for work, and parenting-without neglecting any of them. I think that I will be able to use these skills prioritizing and assigning value to the tasks that I am assigned in my college level classes. There will be changes involved for my family and I, but I think we have learned to adapt to shifting needs and that this, like many changes before, will challenge us but allow us to grow, mature, and learn.

One big change is that my kids will have to become much more self-sufficient! They are already responsible for many of their own chores, like folding their own laundry and packing their own lunches. However, now that my time is even more limited, they are going to have to become much more independent. Part of my enrolling in college was so that I will be more flexible in my career by the time they reach college themselves; I want to be able to pay for things that they need during their college years, like books, car insurance, and food other than Ramen noodles! To do this, I know that I'll need a higher-paying career, and that the best way to move forward is to get a bachelor's degree.

Aside from my family obligation, going to college at my age is a challenge mentally -- and not just academically, either. The idea of being in a classroom filled with twenty-year-olds is intimidating, and the idea of having teachers who may actually be younger than me is a little scary as well. It's not that I think of myself as more mature or intelligent because of my age, in fact the opposite is true-these young people are already more educated than I've become during my life. But I am afraid that my "real-world experience" won't be as appreciated as I hope it will be; that my peers and professors won't see that my life experience has taught me lessons in how the world works and how to manage things that can't be taught in books or classrooms.

It's this "real-world" experience that led me to seek higher education, however. I work in the insurance industry, and I have worked my way up to my current position from an entry-level secretarial spot that I took when I first got married as a second income. I progressed from filing reports to proofreading them, then after a few years, a higher-up added fieldwork to my list of job duties. It was at this point that I realized I was doing the job of significantly higher-paid employees, and that I was doing it with only the title of "secretary" mainly because I didn't possess a college degree. I vowed that when my children enrolled in elementary school I would enroll as well, but that I would be obtaining the necessary skills to complete a bachelor's degree.

It is a few years after my children have begun school of their own; financial restraints and a slight bit of recognition at work made me forget about my goals of college. But more and more, I have wanted to pursue a bachelor's not only for the benefits that I'm certain will follow it in my career, but for the pride that I will feel at having set this significant goal and accomplished it.

This optimism doesn't mean that I expect my "college years" to be easy. On the contrary, I plan on keeping my job and completing my schoolwork in my spare time. My children are in school full-time and the oldest is responsible enough to watch the younger for a few hours when I'm gone when they get home, so that does take one worry off of my mind. However, balancing classes with this full-time work schedule will mean a lot of late nights studying and writing papers.

A usually start my day before six, getting the kids ready for school and myself ready for work. Including my commute, I work about ten hours daily and return home around six pm.

Then I do my best to leave my work at the door and spend some time just being with my kids; hearing about their day, what they're learning in school, what the latest trends in their social circles are, and all of the details that I want to know about their lives. We cook and eat dinner together, but I'm afraid that that luxury is going to be cut short soon to allow me more study time. More evenings, the kids are going to be responsible for putting together a ready-made meal, or thawing a frozen entree, or making sandwiches, or (occasionally) ordering a pizza!

Once home from work and having heard about the days of my children, we'll have dinner together, even though I might have to spend less of dinner talking or cooking and more of it reading and proofreading. I won't sacrifice helping my kids with their own schoolwork when they need it for my own studies; however, they're getting to the ages where most parents aren't able to help conjugate verbs in the pluperfect past tense or extract whole numbers from complex calculus formulas anyway. I'll happily help with proofreading for grammar, for subject matter, and help them come up with creative ideas and methods of presentation, but my capacities in their math and science classes are definitely inferior to even their own.

Bedtime comes around 9 or 10, and for a few hours, I'll study alone and accomplish the bulk of my classwork during this time. Having the computer all to myself, a quiet atmosphere, and the whole office space in which to spread out will facilitate my limited time studying.

After a few hours of sleep, this cycle will begin again-kids to school, me to work, me to school, family time together at dinner, and individual study time for everyone.