What am I doing still in college at age 60? I’ve been asking myself that lately.
A few months ago I got it into my head I’d like to teach English as a second language in some foreign country and so decided to apply for the graduate certificate program starting this summer. The only credits I lacked were a couple of linguistics classes, but there was time to take those this semester. My husband said he was glad to pay the tuition for me, so I jumped into the classes and scrambled to get the recommendation letters and transcripts I needed to make the application deadline of the first of February.
And then I waited. The graduate department said they’d let me know by April 15 if my application would be accepted. I refused to acknowledge the possibility of failure and settled into studying, doing homework and trotting off to classes with thousands of teenagers.
At that point, April 15 was still a long way off, and my motivation was high.
But then the letter came early. The shock I had when I saw the envelope in my mailbox paled to the shock I got when I read what the letter inside said. They turned me down.
Never mind $1400 tuition for two classes that all of a sudden had all the attraction of an afternoon in the dentist chair. We’re not talking money here, this is my life! I had set a goal and had worked my darndest, and they were rejecting me. “How can they do that?” I wailed to my husband.
Funny how things haven’t changed much in 40 years. I was in college that many years ago and remember crying over the same kind of experiences. My parents encouraged me then to keep on trying. This time, my husband listened to me cry and insist my only recourse was to drop those stupid classes and rid myself of the stress of the whole college scene. He was surprised at the idea, but hesitated only a moment before he said sure, if I wanted to, why not? He said he only wanted me happy and the university could blow itself up for all he cared. In fact, he said, if I wanted him to, he’d even help them out in that regard.
So it was right back on me. I spent a couple of days pouting but dragged myself to classes anyway while I was trying to decide what to do. I even called the administration offices to see how you dropped classes just four weeks before the end of a semester. They made it seem more difficult than staying in! I thought of the good old days when I cried on my mother’s shoulder and my dad wrote me a check, but I knew those days were gone forever, and I was on my own. I sure wanted to quit.
But, in the end, I decided to stay in school and finish what I had started. It doesn’t matter that I’ll probably never use those two linguistic classes. What made me decide to stick it out was thinking of the years I spent raising my 10 kids and all the times I made them finish a job they hated. I used to tell them, when they grumbled, that I believed one of the most important things they’d ever learn in life was how to do something they didn’t want to do.
I wanted them to know Mom still believes it’s true.
(Editor’s note: Dea Smith is a resident of Valencia County who’s taking time out of her life to go back to college.)
1079
April 18, 2024
