Confessions of an Old-ish Co-Ed

My first semester at the University of Georgia was encouraging. Granted, I only took one class and it was online and asynchronous, but I actually had a lot of fun and did pretty well. I'd always been kind of a lazy student back in the day, doing just enough to get by and barely passing my classes, but this time around, I was learning about a topic that interested me both personally and professionally, and I was paying my own tuition. I can't express how much that forces you to take it all a bit more seriously. 

I promised myself that I was going to blend right in with the other students. There'd be no whining to my professors and advisors that I was too old for this newfangled stuff, no asking for any extra help. Unfortunately, my mother died near the end of that first semester, and I had to ask for an extension on a project, which probably happens more when you're thirty- or forty-something than it does when you're eighteen or twenty, but it was out of my hands. I made a B, and I was quite pleased with myself.  

The next semester, I decided I'd up the ante a little bit. I took two classes. This is when I began to question my ability to blend in with these Gen Z kids who were all around me. It all started when a professor asked me for my pronouns. (I wrote about this the other day when covering JD Vance's advice to young men, so if you've already read it, bear with me for a minute.) 

Our first assignment was to film a video introduction and upload it to a class website so we could all get to know each other. "Tell us your name, your major, your hobbies and interests, and your pronouns so your classmates can gain a better understanding of who you are," the professor, who was not much older than me, said. 

This was a first for me. I'd never been asked to provide my pronouns in my life and had no desire to start now, but the other students rattled theirs off in their videos like they'd simply been asked their names and this was just normal everyday speak. "I'm Katie. I'm an English major from Jacksonville, Florida. I like to travel, and I have two cats. My pronouns are she/her." It was clear that these children young adults had been indoctrinated with this gender ideology stuff. 

The only thing that reassured me was this one guy who, instead of giving his pronouns, ended his video with "I'm a dude." As I said in my article last week, he's the only person from that class I even remember, much less gained any sort of understanding of who he was. In that moment, that guy was my only hope for his generation.  

Barring a few technology issues, I did okay in those two classes. I did so well, in fact, that I got a little cocky. Why not try a full load the next semester? That's four full classes from January until May. Never mind the fact that I had so much other stuff going on in my life. College as an adult is so much easier than college as a teenager. I'd make it work. I'd been doing it so far. What was two more classes? 

I remember seeing a girl in one of my classes with a real paper planner near the beginning of the semester, anxiously jotting down a homework assignment and looking overwhelmed. I laughed. First of all, I was shocked that college students these days use planners. Isn't there some sort of app for that?  Second of all, I'd already doctored a chicken, cooked dinner for my dad and me, written two articles for work, and finished my homework for my other classes that day. You didn't see me having to write anything down. That's because I was a mature adult who had it all together. Or so I thought. 

I took a history class, a literature class, and a course in marine biology. I also decided to sign up for precalculus. It was a prerequisite for several upper level science courses that I wanted to take. I've never been the best math person, but I figured it'd be like everything else, like riding a bicycle. I'd get back on and just take off, even though it'd been well over a decade since I'd done any kind of advanced math.  

Well, class was three days a week. Attendance was mandatory. And we had homework due every single class day, plus weekly quizzes and multiple exams. The first night it took me seven hours to complete my homework. Seven hours!  Within a month, I had that down to three hours for each homework assignment, and I'd only managed to do that because there are these guys on YouTube who break down all the graphing and trig functions and other words I never want to hear again in my life. 

The history and marine biology classes were easy and pretty straightforward. The literature class, which was actually my favorite, was very busy though. We had elaborate assignments due each week, and while they were fun, I just didn't have a lot of time to spend on them. One Thursday night in late February, I realized I had a project due the next day and needed some art supplies that I didn't have on hand. Thank goodness for Amazon's overnight delivery. I honestly don't know how I managed college 20 years ago without YouTube and Amazon. Score one for this generation. 

By the time spring break rolled around in March, I was tired. Very tired. And instead of just staying home and taking a breather and catching up on life, I'd committed to going on an international trip with a friend. Hey, I said I wanted the college experience. The trip itself was amazing, but the airport was so crowded to and from our destination because most of the state of Georgia was on spring break that week. I hadn't considered all of that. On top of it all, I got COVID from the lady next to me on the plane ride home. 

By the time I got back into the swing of things the next week I was still tired. And sick with COVID. And to be honest, I'd had so much fun on my trip and had learned so much while in Costa Rica that I was beginning to think that maybe I needed to ditch the classroom and just take in more real-world experiences. That week of spring break was truly a life-changing experience for me. But I still had two months left of this stuff, and I'd put dozens of hours and thousands of dollars into it, so I wasn't going to quit now. 

I phoned it in for the history class. I mostly phoned it in for the marine biology class but not before I learned that to Gen Z, climate change is some kind of cult. Each week, we had to participate in discussions on this class message board. This is how I learned that no matter what the topic was, these kids could bring it all back around to climate change. Someone could say they stubbed their toe, and the class would determine climate change was at fault. 

One week, someone posed a question about farming a certain type of fish. On one hand, these fish are easy to grow, and purposely farming them could help save thousands if not millions of people around the world from starvation. On the other hand, it could have negative consequences and speed up "manmade" climate change. I was the only single person in that class who felt it was more important to feed the hungry people who live on the planet now than it is to focus on something that may or may not exist in the future. 

I more or less gave up on precalculus. In the end, I barely passed, and I think that was only because my professor felt bad for me. 

I put as much effort as I could into the literature class because I actually enjoyed it. The class was mostly girls, and I learned that no matter what our assignment was, these young 20-year-old women could make it about Taylor Swift. It was borderline obsessive. 

One of our very last assignments was to pick a book from a list and read it and write an essay on it. Oddly, the book I chose was about a woman who gave up her corporate city life and moved somewhere new and learned more about the world through firsthand experiences than she had by taking a more traditional route through the first 35 years or so of her life. 

It reminded me so much of myself. You see, I'd technically gone back to school to study agriculture, but the reality was that I'd learned so much more about it in the years before because I'd been growing my own plants and raising my own animals since 2015. And truthfully, I'd also gone back to school to have a new experience after years of caregiving for my mom. But I felt like my one week in another country during spring break was a much more important experience than any time I spent in a classroom or reading a textbook. 

So, that's what I wrote about — how much I could relate to the woman in the book and how I think we often learn more outside of a traditional educational setting. Not only did I get an excellent grade on the essay, but my professor sent me an email on the last day of class and encouraged me to maintain that mindset. You don't want to get older and regret not seeking all the things you seek to discover in this world, she said. 

When that semester was over, I was so thankful that I could move on with my life, but I also realized that it had all been a learning experience in itself. And I'm not just talking about how climate change, pronouns, and Swiftyism all feel like some kind of cult when talking to people half my age. I can't say I learned a lot in my classes that semester — my precalculus notes now look like they're written in Chinese — but I learned a lot about myself and what I want out of life. And that was worth every penny of my tuition.  

If you've gone back to school as an older adult, I'd love to hear about your experience.