Adult Education

Wilso

I did some extra study years after finishing my degree. A much more positive learning experience, the 2nd time around. Maturity & focus made a big difference.
Honestly, the first time around (straight out of high school), I think I was too immature (& enjoying my newly found freedom at Art College in the big, bad city too much!) to gain full from my studies. But gosh, it was fun!
IMO the best time to learn anything is when you're ready, willing & able to ... & when the course material is 100% relevant to you .. Motivation, in other words.
Congratulations on doing so well! Are you going to continue?

I'm going to continue while ever I can get classes. That's the biggest problem for a part-timer in our horrendously underfunded education system. MOst of the classes are daytime, and I can't leave my job to do them.

Very expensive, yes? Especially part-time, these days. There are no evening classes?

Wilso:

Many Universities in the USA offer online college courses and they're cheap.

I'm single and I work as a tradesman in manufacturing. i.e, the cost is not a big issue. First semester this year I have to miss 2 hours of the 3 hours of lectures each week for the chemistry subject I'm doing. We've got prepared lecture notes available on a web site for the subject, so I'm going to try to basically learn the subject myself. Still got tutes and practicals that I'll be going to.

There are only evening classes for the subjects with very large enrolments. So if I was studying economics it'd be a lot easier. The problem is the thought of doing so makes me sick!

Cheers. Am going back right now, as I think you know. I leave work for a couple of hours each day for organic chemistry, and have physics (no calculus, which makes it heinously dull and slow -- especially as most in the class have little facility for the algebra involved -- but calculus was so long ago and so poorly taught and I was so regularly, er, unable to learn it that I can't remember it) and biology at night. I'm loving it. I wish I could dump the job so I could really learn the stuff instead of just picking up what I need to do get through the course, but it's great.

Totally different than the first shot at college, which was all artistic and literary in focus. Don't regret it, but... well, I wish I'd taken the time to figure out what I really wanted. Of course, if I hadn't gone through that, what I really want now might be totally different.

Anywho, my focus now is so much better. I look around, and I see the younger students hung up on little points, worried about their grades (as though you can't set your own standard of work!), thinking the instructors really know everything about what they're teaching and getting very upset when this seems not to be the case... It's very different now.


Feel free to post chem questions here if you like. I don't know how similar our curricula are, but I'm fresh off the inorganic series here. No guarantees, of course...

Sounds pretty close.

How would you like to attend law school 3 nights a week and work 40 hr/week?

Well since I'm unoccupied (and don't think, I'll find a new job at my age here), I've started studying again at a distance university.
And since I've time, I'm doing the "full program" = three subjects, all from the begining. Meanwhile, I've got what would be equivalent to an American BA in history (althought I'm on MA/doctorate course).
It not only great fun but a really good experience!

However, they are going to take fees from those who already got academic degrees from next term onwards. I'm not sure, if I will stay enrolled then.

New haven, I'm already doing 2 nights + full time job + overtime + looking after house, car, motorcycle, cooking, cleaning, washing, shopping etc etc

I've only just discovered this thread Wilso.

I went back to do my degree as my children were growing up. I worked part time and did the degree part time and it was very very hard work juggling family, job, degree et al. It was worth it though and i graduated in 2000. My husband got fed up with it at times but was basically supportive and my daughters were too.

I am really glad i did it - i now have a whole circle of new friends to add to the old and am doing just what i wanted in showing work in galleries and doing other things that i never dreamt i could do like being one of the organisers of a bit open studios event in the county and doing the brochure for it. I am also teaching adult ed now - I did my level 1 adult ed teaching cert at the beginning of the year and am now doing my level 2 - that would enable me to teach exam courses but i don't know yet if I'd want the responsibility and hassle of that.

So - keep studying and good luck.

I'm in Oracle training (for DBA). It's a lot of work, and it took me a couple of weeks to get back in the swing of studying again. I'll let you know if it's worthwhile when I graduate (April) and assuming I get my OCP (Oracle Certified Professional status).

jespah what is that? good luck whatever it is!

DBA = Database Administrator. Basically, for companies with large databases (most large companies and a lot of medium-sized ones, too), I'd be keeping the database up and running and also help create reports which analysts (the kind of job I used to do, so I know the kinds of things they need) can send off to senior management.

Right now I'm learning SQL (Standard Query Language); my next class is DBA 1, then DBA 2, then Tuning (I dunno if they give me my own tuning fork :wink:). So I'm walking around these days saying things like I wonder how to do a subquery with an uneven join?

Fortunately, my husband is used to me not speaking English at all times. :-D

PS Thanks!

I dropped out of college in my teens. I returned in my middle thirties, picked up a bachelor's and a master's degree. This led to a very satisfying career that I could not have had without the schooling.

I found college to be much easier the second time around. I was there because that was where I wanted to be, not because my parents sent me. I found that I had information collected in my brain that served me well, and made it easier for me than the younger students. I was also more organized, and did not have the distractions of dating and peer acceptance that were so important to me when I went to college right after high school.

Well, I've still got the dating distraction. But you're right, there are a lot of things easier when you're an adult.
When I was doing Biology last year, at the end of every lecture we'd get a set of questions designed to help us direct our study. I used to go through all the questions, and then go to my instructor's office during her consult times and talk about each one (to check my understanding). I was the ONLY student out of about 400 doing the subject, who took advantage of the consultation times in this way. At one stage I started to think to myself "do all of the other 400 people understand this subject so much better than me that they don't have any questions to ask?" I asked this same question to a couple of honours students at the faculty get-together they have each year, to which one guy replied "I hate mature age students". He went on to explain that he got about half way through his 3rd year before he would have the courage to knock on the door of an academic and ask a simple question. The way I figure it, I'm paying to do this, and they're getting paid to teach me. During my current chemistry subject, I've knocked on the door of people who aren't even teaching me, if I can't find one of my instructors. I've never been turned away either. Not uncommon on my monthly roster day off work to see me haunting the chemistry faculty building for anyone I can hijack into giving me some info that'll help me complete the subject with the best mark I can get.

I wasn't able to continue with Biotechnology because I couldn't get classes to fit in with work. A situation exacerbated by the shiftwork I do now. So I've enrolled in a distance degree in IT. Took my credits with me, so I've got a year down already. I've been able to make an early start. Which is lucky, because in these subjects, I'm gonna need it.