by The Chameleon

Created on: January 03, 2008

I was 38 years of age when I was accepted into university, study was something I had always wanted to do but didn't know how successful I would be. When leaving high school, I applied for a few university courses without telling my family. I was the first in my family to complete year twelve and further education was something I had hoped for. Unfortunately, my grades weren't great, I hated living at home and there was no way my family would be able to financially support me to go. My mother found out by accident that I applied for university, I think she was surprised but relieved when I didn't get in.

At 38 years of age, my family was still not supportive despite me not needing them to financially support me. My mother couldn't understand why I would want to study at this age and the rest of the family didn't really care as long as I didn't start bringing the subject matter into family discussions. It was never said out loud but you could tell. Friends were extremely supportive as were my work colleagues and they are the ones who helped me through the tough times along with my extremely supportive son who made coffee whenever needed.

A few tips for the prospective mature aged student are as follows:
1) Network.
I made the mistake when starting to not do this. In my mind, I was there to study not socialize and between home life, university and work, time was not something I had to waste on meeting people. I learned very quickly after almost failing an assignment that friends were vital in helping you succeed. I cannot stress how important it is to network and befriend someone. Obtain a good network of like minded people and get there email address and phone number, offer yours first and this will encourage them to give you theirs. Compare notes, meet after the lecture and discuss homework and assignments. Exchange your notes and learn different ways of writing, help each other. You will find there are many times when you are grateful that you have done this. No one understands what you are going through like someone in your class under similar circumstances. My friends and I would ring each other up for moral support, exchange ideas and basically be encouraging and motivating.

2) Planning
Planning is also vital. Goal setting and prioritizing will be needed in order to get you through the next few years of study. Work out your goals, write them down and look at them, remind yourself what needs to be done. Set up your primary goal with smaller goals to get you there.

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