by Karyn Tomaski

Created on: February 28, 2007   Last Updated: September 10, 2009

From Where I'm Sitting

When you're 19 years old, your whole life is ahead of you. I'm 45, and some of the happiest times of my life are behind me. I've married my best friend, gave birth to two amazing kids and watched them grow, bought my first house, and made more memories than I could ever document. My journey is far from over. I have entered a new phase in my life and it's looking to be quite exciting. This is my second semester at a nearby community college.

Returning to school after an almost 20 year absence is not without its challenges. I am still a wife and a mom. I also work part-time from home. It's an interesting juggling act and there is never a moment when something doesn't need doing. Schoolwork, while a definite priority, sometimes has to take a backseat to life off campus. There is solace in knowing that while at school, I am not alone. I have met other middle age students whose experiences parallel mine in remarkable ways. We seem to seek each other out for help with those mind-blowing algebra formulas and maybe more importantly for that reinforcement that what we are trying to accomplish here is worthwhile and attainable.
College is different now than it was some 20 years ago. Professors are different. The classes are taught differently. Students are different. I am definitely a different student than I was years ago. While the speed at which I grasp a mathematical equation may have slowed, the intensity and desire I have to master it is different than any other learning process I can remember. It's a personal test for me, to see how far I can push myself and if I have the intestinal fortitude to go on. I no longer go through the motions of learning; I truly choose to absorb any and all information. Part of this may be due to the fact that at this point in my life, I'm paying for my own education, but also because challenging myself in this way has increased my self-confidence in a way I never expected.
Perhaps what has surprised me the most about my college experience so far is that while I am learning about journalism in my journalism class and about algebra in my algebra class, I am also learning so much more about so many more things. I have always seen the gray areas in the world much clearer than the black and white areas, but perhaps I had started to become a little stagnant and judgemental in my thinking. I think for myself, returning to school at this point in my life, is the best thing I have done for myself in a long time.

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