This first -person column is from Colleen Sharpe, who is a second -year student at King’s College University in Halifax. For more information about the first person stories of CBC, please See frequent questions.
I smiled for myself when the bus transported me and my new backpack full of books, paper and pens towards the campus. It was my first day to realize a dream of years. My emotion grew when I got out of the bus at a campus stop and found the classrooms.
Upon entering my small tutorial classroom, I glimpsed the students who looked at me expectant as if I were the teacher, perhaps a natural assumption since I was the only person with gray hair in the room. But when I took a seat between them instead of the head of the room, they all quickly looked at their phones again while I riffly ripped through my backpack.
Not only did I return to school at 55. I started the university for the first time in my 50. For years, with progress I read stories of older people who returned to school, but they were generally going to graduate. I had not even had the opportunity to start, much less complete, a university degree, which was unusual since I had always loved to be in school.
Anthaea-Grata Patricia Dennis began university at the age of nine and obtained a degree of science at the age of 12, becoming the youngest graduate at the University of Canada.
Growing up, he had won spelling and mathematics certificates. Once I memorized the circulatory system of the human body only by fun. I prospered in organizing my tasks in a small notebook.
However, my parents’ divorce, my father’s non -diagnosed mental illness and my family’s participation in a conservative religious culture that ashamed rock music, quotes and education of women let me feel depressed and sometimes, sometimes Suicide, during high school. When I had to leave an academic mathematics course 11 because I could no longer follow the pace of the workload of my university preparation courses, I felt that I had lost my identity and hopes.
I briefly considered going to the hairdressing school, but for my last year of high school, my motivation was lost to non -diagnosed depression.
My next 35 years were full of jobs, marriage, children, voluntary work and the relief of depression treatment. I decided to give my children an education at home, and I began to discover how. Today I know that I made that decision because I loved learning. I wanted to convey this love to my children. While planning their high school courses and helped them investigate postsecundaria options, I began to dream of attending the university as well.
On the practical side, perhaps a title would lead to interesting job opportunities. On the dreamer side, he had learned through the home education project how infinitely fascinating history, science and literature could be. Of course, I could read and try to write on my own on any subject for the rest of my life. However, I wanted to do this with the comments of the experienced teachers. I also felt that winning a title would validate me for me in a way that self -learning could not. I had issues pending to want to prove to myself that it was academically capable.
Even so, the idea seemed impossible: without time, without money and without confidence that I could handle that level of learning. However, I planned multiple degrees for myself in nursing, costume studies, right, Irish studies, linguistics, cultural studies and more. For 2019, our two children had finished education at home, and I worked on their own as a reading tutor.
Then, the tragedy hit our family in July 2021. Our 20 -year -old daughter was hit by a car and almost killed. Our family exceeded this along with much support, and helping my daughter recover became the focus of my life during the next two years. The shock of almost losing it impressed on how fleeting is life.
In 2023, the idea of the university appeared once again and spoke with a friend about it. She wisely told me to request because if she reached my death bed without having tried, I would regret it.
Then, a month before the autumn semester of 2023 I was going to start, I requested school and financial aid, “just to see what would happen.” I doubted they would accept me.
In a matter of weeks, I opened an acceptance email from the University of King’s College in Halifax. I also received provincial and federal financial assistance, with more subsidies that I expected, in addition to the loans of interest of zero percent. I had time, and now the money was available. The last thing I needed was confidence, which would not less that I really committed me to school. I hesitated under overwhelming fears: could I follow the rhythm of all my responsibilities? Would any of my younger classmates accept me?
However, with my husband’s breath, I decided to take the step. What followed was the emotion of learning, as well as the overwhelming amount of work that I had not experienced since I worried my newborn babies. My students bristically touched the keys on their laptops, format the contours during the conferences, while my hand shook around my pen while looking for the first time in many years with how to take useful notes quickly.
When a friend for a long time he called half of my first month at the university to ask how things were going, he listened calmly sob: “I can’t do this”, and then gave me a talk.
I decided to face my fears from the front. I memorized the names of each student in my tutorial group to greet them by name. I sat in different seats during the daily conferences to try to talk during breaks. Emme and I share our lives among us on bus trips. Kate offered to check my papers. Later, I taught Kate to embroider.
I had lost freedom over time, but, Oh, the freedom that began to open in my mind while I learned so many philosophical, historical and literary ideas with this type of student. I can also have learned or not a cultural reference of generation Z or two, one of them is “Boygenius”, and I can have had to do or not Some research to better understand.
Blessed, my daughter’s accident trauma began to fade. I looked at the oral exams of the semester full of anxiety the best I could and finished my first year in April 2024 with new friends and a final rating that increased my confidence.
My current hope is to combine English and the history of science and esoteric in a degree. While fighting with the practicality of this decision, I realized that, as a mature student, I already knew how to live my life practically. I wanted to have the opportunity to deepen my thinking skills through the study of ideas that interest me. I came to understand that doing this enriches my practical skills anyway.
My university trip has shown me that I am academically capable. But more than that, he has taught me that if I want to make a change of life and I can discover how to make it happen, then my age does not matter. The advantage is that even when I question my academic skills, my gen z classmates are among my greatest followers.
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