I remember the moment when I first realized I was a mature student. I was browsing the Internet before class started, when I noticed the young woman at the other end of the almost empty room was looking at me. After a few moments the woman began to speak.
“Excuse me, are you Jordan Gill?”
“Yes.”
“Did you go to Stanley High School?”
“Yes.”
I had no idea who this woman was. So I started to go through the Rolodex in my head, trying to find a name or a face to match with this person.
“I’m Elizabeth McArthur, we went to the same school.”
I still had no idea who she was, which she quickly picked up on.
“I remember you because you were student council president.”
That was true, when I was president in my senior year.
“I was in Grade 7.”
That last sentence did two things. I realized why I didn’t recognize her, and I started to feel very old.
*****
Mature students, or adult learners, are students who start a degree after the age of 21, an age where many are graduating from university. Mature students aren’t necessarily filling up lecture halls, but there is a steady increase in their enrollment.
They each have their own reasons for returning to school later in life. Some may not have been ready the first time around, others were young and made a couple of mistakes before they were able to try again. But they have all gained a little perspective before returning to school.
*****
I woke up with little memory of the preceding 15 hours. I had skipped class that day to drink with my cousin. This was January, 2008, almost eight years ago, I was 18 years old. It doesn’t feel that long ago, but at the same time it feels like an entire different life. I was beginning my second semester at school at the University of New Brunswick. I received high marks during the fall semester and it was the last time I would for three years.
*****
Danielle Elliott is 27 years old and in her third year at St Thomas University. She originally studied business in Ontario but dropped out after two years.
“I had actually met the man who is now my husband when I was in college,” said Elliott. “He was joining the military just as I was finishing up my last semester… we fell in love, we got married a year later, and the next thing I knew I was in New Brunswick.”
Her husband’s career led them to Oromocto where he is stationed at CFB Gagetown. Elliott started working at the Days Inn.
“I just got a part time job to pay the bills,” said Elliott. “I slowly worked my way into a management position… It wasn’t a particularly bad job, I just wasn’t happy there.”
She decided to challenge herself and enrolled at STU.
*****
Over the next three years, I often wouldn’t go to school. When I did I hadn’t done the readings. There were courses I would sign up for and then never attend until the last day for the exam prep. It’s amazing I wasn’t expelled, but I was put on academic probation.
*****
Oscar Baker III is a fourth year journalism student, and is 24. Baker was born in Presque Isles, Maine, but spent much of his childhood on the Elsipogtog reserve, formerly known as Big Cove. When he was in his teens he moved to St. Augustine, Florida, and after high school attended community college but he dropped out.
“The first semester I did really well, I think I had A/B honour roll, but the second semester I started drinking, smoking and I ended up just flunking out,” said Baker. “So I decided to refocus my life a bit, work a bunch.”
It was after dropping out that Baker moved back to Elsipogtog and worked at a fast food restaurant.
“They promised me a supervisor job, I worked even harder, and that supervisor job never came,” said Baker. “I felt that I had talents that could go in other places.”
*****
Eventually things changed for me. Fs and Ds were quickly being replaced with As and Bs.
My professors grew more pleased with my performance. I went to class and I did the readings. I was finally able to graduate from UNB in May of 2013, but even then I knew that I wasn’t through with school. There are only a few lines of work for political science majors. The first is becoming a civil servant which I wouldn’t be able to get. The second is working with a political party, which I would never want to do. The third is to become a Political Scientist and continue your education. I chose this option.
The only thing was even though my marks for the previous two and a half years had been top notch, they weren’t sure I was ready. They told me to take a few more courses and improve my marks. I lasted a little over a month, before I quit. I needed to go a different direction.
*****
Anthony Peter-Paul is in his final year of university, he is 30 years old, and his journey to this point started with dropping out of high school at age 17.
“I moved around a lot when I was younger. I went to a lot of different schools, and I got sick and tired of changing schools so much so I just quit,” said Peter-Paul. “The last school that I went to was Bathurst and it just sucked, I couldn’t stand it, I couldn’t stand the people… Then they transferred me to this other school called the transition centre, which is like the school for bad kids, and I just felt like a lowly piece of garbage there.”
Like most young people who have left school, he entered into the job market.
Peter-Paul started going to UNB, without a major. He just hadn’t decided what area he wanted to go into. It wasn’t until a friend told him about the journalism program that Peter-Paul decided to go to STU.
“One course that I did do good on was English. So, I figured, ‘alright I can write,’” said Peter-Paul. “Then I applied to go to STU because I knew that one of the skills I had at school, that I could pass the classes, was English, was writing.”
*****
In the winter of 2014, I entered the journalism program at STU. The transition was a little rough; my class had a year and a half to get to know each other. I was transplanted into the middle of it.
But I survived that. My GPA last year was 4.1, a far cry from the 1.6 I earned one semester at UNB.
Elliott, Baker, Peter-Paul and myself are all examples that sometimes people need to forge a different path in life. Some student’s do well going directly into college or university, some don’t. A lot of young people might even benefit from waiting a few years before going to school. The worst that could happen is you don’t waste thousands of dollars getting Fs.
