I am going to tell you about a funny thing that happened on the way to my bachelor’s degree as a nontraditional student. But first, what is a nontraditional student?

According to The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), A non-traditional student is defined as a student with one or more of these characteristics (1):

• Do not immediately continue your education after you graduate from high school
• Attend college only part-time
• Work full-time (35 hours or more per week)
• Are financially independent
• Have children or dependents other than your spouse
• Are a single parent
• Have a GED, not a high school diploma

I have attended several different colleges at different times in my life.  I attended 1 year of college after high school, got married, had children, divorced, returned to school, and got a job.  I later returned to school, finishing my associate degree in my 30s.  I did this to be more marketable to other Law Enforcement agencies that were starting to require a higher level of education for their candidates.  I had no idea if I was going back to work or not, and I needed to be able to get another job.

Fortunately, I have always looked younger than I am, so I was able to blend in a little with younger students.  I enjoyed college the second time and got stellar grades (unlike my first year).

10 years later, I went back and finished my bachelor’s degree.  This time, I was attending school with people the age of my children. Do not be afraid to go back to school if you are older.  I can tell you, I had a blast!  I was asked to join the Criminal Justice Honor Society.  We did a lot of community projects and went on trips to New York City and Dallas.  As a college student, most of these trips are sponsored in part by the school and partially paid for by fundraising.  I think it cost me $100-$200 bucks at the most (not including shopping or sightseeing)! Eventually, they figured it out, but I was already accepted into the group. But then this happened…

Several semesters in, on the first day of one of my Criminal Justice classes, the professor handed out a survey. It asked for a variety of demographics, including what year (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior?), personal income, household income, number of people in your household, and age, along with various questions to determine what type of Criminal Justice knowledge we had. We filled it out and handed it back in.

Much to my dismay, at the very next class, the professor started reading off class statistics…So, we have a range of incomes from $-$$$, this many freshmen (she gave a number), and so on.  When she got to age (uh oh), it went something like this…

We have five 18-year-olds, two 20-year-olds, and so on until she said, and one 40-something (cough cough) year old. Everyone started looking around the room to figure out who the 40- something year old student was. I didn’t want to give it away, so I looked around too, as if it wasn’t me (Ha ha, genius right?).  I thought it had worked until after class.  A guy walks up next to me, gives me a nudge with his elbow, leans over and whispers…”It’s you, isn’t it?”

The gig is up…

Well… here’s what I think…you are never too old to do anything to better yourself!

1. https://nces.ed.gov/pubs/web/97578e.asp