by David Duncan

Created on: August 06, 2011   Last Updated: September 28, 2011

Having recently completed a degree in IT after more than two decades since attending college, I confess that getting back into the swing of studying took some effort.  I couldn’t just say, “Oh, I will set aside this day or that day for studying and it will all fall into place as I go.”  This mentality was not going to do, considering I was entering a completely different career field with IT training, which I knew very little about outside of an end-user’s ability with computers. 

For me, I was fortunate that one of my first classes dealt specifically with learning study skills all over again, such as setting up a calendar for scheduling all my daily activities into hourly segments from 7am to 10pm.  At first, this schedule seemed like overkill.  It didn’t take long to realize the importance of this new schedule being one of the most effective tools in managing study time against all other activities.   I consider myself to be very organized, but without this schedule sticking to set study times became more difficult.  The lesson here is when I committed study time to writing, my conscience “nudged” me into compliance when I strayed from set times.   It is ok to make changes to study times, life happens. But, this type of schedule may be a saving grace to your educational success, it was for me.

Making physical shifts to allow time for studying is just one piece to returning to school.  The other piece is a mental shift.  Was I afraid to return to school?  Yes, especially knowing I was going to have to take math and science again.  This is the foundational skills seated at the base of my Associate of Applied Science in Computer Networking.  Go figure.  I struggled through Algebra, Geometry, and Trigonometry, not to mention the study of the law of physics, the first time in college and wasn’t expecting anything better this time. 

Fear of returning to school doesn’t have to paralyze you.  I friend of mine used to say F.E.A.R. is an acronym for “False Evidence Appearing Real.”  I feared that I would just skate by in math and science this time, or worst fail.  I was wrong, the real evidence was that once embracing this new study, I understood more than I thought.  I passed with B in both classes.  More importantly, I was reminded of how studying sciences and math exercises

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