Do Adult Students Fit in the College Scene?

I remember parking at a meter the first time in front of the large building in which I was going to take an achievement test. I noticed other skinny kids walking in the same direction, flipping their hair around their shoulders and talking on cell phones or with a group of friends reminiscent to middle school. When I reached the building, I walked through the revolving door and over to a table to fill out a form. I couldn't help but notice all of the other 'kids' in jeans, standing around waiting and laughing. I hadn't felt that out of place since I was in high school.

What a vastly different experience this had been for me! I had graduated high school before I turned seventeen and had been working full-time in quiet, adult-filled offices for the past four years. As I had watched those other kids seeking admission to college, I couldn't help but wonder how out-of-place a thirty-forty-maybe even fifty-something student would feel in those same circumstances. Would they be old and wise, not caring about the younger generation's conversations and enthusiasm for turning eighteen? Or would they feel intimidated by the carefree attitudes and reckless abandon so many of them possessed?

After that experience, I decided to start out at a cheaper, more convenient community college where adult students or students with children tended to be the norm. I wasn't that old, yet I felt more control over my emotions and my inhibitions when I was around others who held more responsibilities. Perhaps that was a bias view, but it was my view.

Although I turned 23 before I finished the community college, I decided to transfer to a satellite school of one of the major universities, the place where I had originally taken the achievement test. Only two years had passed, but this time I didn't mind joining classes with a bunch of struggling younger students. I didn't have as much in common with some of them because of my lack of experience in the dating-drinking-going-out world-by this time I had a steady, serious older boyfriend-but quite often, I found I was able to speak to the older students and the younger students. It was no longer 'older students versus younger students,' but became just 'students.'

Soon, I discovered all students were intimidated by something at one time or another during their college experience, whether it was another student or an over-bearing professor who seemed to demand the life blood from their veins. I also discovered that what mattered most was the ability to overcome this intimidation, ability granted frequently to the more experienced, older students. I recall one thirty-something student, when speaking of a professor who had a habit of making her students break down into tears, say she was thirty-six years old with four kids-no teacher was going to make her cry. It appears many non-traditional students feel this way-that they have been beaten by life too many times to let some professor's attitude defeat the fortitude to better their lives. With at least 41% of students now over age 25 on campuses according to the Association for Nontraditional Students in Higher Education, more professors may find less tears and more will-power applied to homework.

I am now approaching thirty and I am very close to receiving my bachelor's degree. After changing majors at least four times, taking a year off after I had a baby, and returning to school full-force with a determination to finally hold a four-year--or maybe seven-year-degree in my hand, I am noticing more and more older students joining the ranks of larger-sized college campuses. Those who decided they didn't have the money or the time for college as teenagers are finally finding the time to improve their lives intellectually and socially. I've found many adult students are the ones who become most involved in student government offices and the administrative side of college life, granting a voice to those who never spoke-up for themselves in college previously. The students who may not have fit-in to begin with are now finding and making their own place in college.