Returning to education? (Life as a Mature Student)

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	Life as a Mature Student
Date:	10/09/01 (148 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Age difference, Can be rewarding, No income

Disadvantages: Age difference, Can be hard

==== Why I’m a mature student ====

I’m not stupid. I know some of you are bound to disagree, but as someone has already said “There are two sides to every argument – mine, and the wrong one.” so ner. But saying that, I didn’t get the A level results I wanted, or needed, to go to university. Granted, they were probably the results I deserved, seeing as I was quite lazy at school and didn’t do much work.

To this day, I don’t know if that was a good or a bad thing. For a start, I wasn’t even sure whether university was something I wanted to do. The career department in our school was equipped to deal with one thing and one thing only, and that was getting everyone into university. If you didn’t want to get into university, then our school practically refused to help. I also know now that if I’d fluked the results to get into university, chances are, with my laziness, I’d have failed too many exams and got kicked out quite soon.

So, did I want to go to university, or was I pushed into thinking I was by the school, or the fact that all my friends were likely to go? I wasn’t even certain what I wanted to do with my life, and my UCCA (or UCAS as it’s now known) form was a list of five different degrees all at the same university.

So, I went to work. Eventually, I joined Royal Mail, and spent the next few years doing a dull, but relatively well paid job. I enjoyed most of my time there, making some good friends and participating in some social and sporting events.

Eventually though, it became apparent that I was going nowhere, and I’d always had that nagging feeling that I should be doing something I enjoyed that interested me as well as tested me, instead of reading people’s mail all day long. I decided that I wanted to have a career in the I.T. industry, and for 99% of the interesting jobs in that field, I’d need a degree.


==== How I became a mature student ====

So, taking the bull by the horns, I applied for a place on one of the Access courses at my local college. I was reliably informed by the interviewer that with my one A level and good GCSE passes, obtaining a place was simply a matter of my saying “Yes” as she offered me the place there and then.

I didn’t want to leave work, however, and through a stroke of good fortune (the department head was leaving, and granted my application for part-time status, whereas the incoming head had already told me if it was his decision, I wouldn’t get it) I managed to obtain part time hours that would work well with my college timetable.

There were a few different Access courses at my college, and while I chose the “Maths and Computers” one, there were ones in “English” and “History” as well, I believe.

Again, I enjoyed my single year of this course, and did very well, thank you very much (I missed out on the all time top marks because I made a few silly mistakes in one of my exams). This enabled me to progress into my chosen degree at my local university. (As much as I would have liked to have gone to a university further afield, this wasn’t financially viable as I’d already decided to do the whole thing on my own without help from anyone)

==== Once I got to university ====

My degree of choice was BSc (Hons) Computer Science. For me, it would be a five year degree (Foundation year, two years of the “proper” degree, a year out followed by final year) and while I didn’t think the foundation year was necessary for me, it was compulsory.
Settling into university was a mixed bag for me. Certainly the getting up for lectures and tutorials was easy from my time in the real world. The harder part was getting used to the teaching styles of the lecturers. Some were very good, and some were downright po
or. Another point I found hard to deal with was a lot of the time it wasn’t very clear what was actually expected of you. A levels and GCSEs had always made it very clear what they expected from their answers, but some of the coursework and exams set by the staff were exceedingly vague in their requirements. However, after the first term, I found I had gotten to grips with most aspects of student life.

==== Should you expect to be treated differently as a mature student? ====

I know I did. Not from other students – I didn’t go around blowing my own trumpet about how old I was (“I’m 21, you know”), but I expected to be given more “time of day” from the staff and lecturers if I ever went to them with a problem. Well, the first two years were a disaster – my Advisor of Studies (you are allocated a staff member who is supposed to help you with any problems you have, and I had two in two years due to retirements etc.) was useless and treated me like an 11 year old, never mind an 18 year old. Now, I’m sure this is just my department in my university, and not true of all universities, but meetings were cancelled at last minute, sometimes with no contact to myself, I was fobbed off with lame excuses and the help I got was generally poor.

I even complained to the head of the department about both my ongoing problem at the time with a lecturer and my problems with my advisor of studies. Again, he treated me more like a child than an adult. Now is a different story though, with an AoS who is exceedingly helpful with lots of advice and suggestions.

At the same time, university life wasn’t the same as I’d heard from my friends when they were at university around half a dozen years before me. It was all down to age. Sure, I made some friends, but apart from nipping to the pub the odd time after lectures, I didn’t really do much socialising with them. I didn’t ha
ve anything in common with them, apart from the degree we were doing. I remember once we were talking about the special editions of the Star Wars movies that had just been released. All my classmates were excited about seeing it in the cinema, and asked me if I had seen it. “Yes” was my reply, “in 1977 when it was released”. Silence. “I wasn’t born then”, piped up one of the girls around the table. Oh dear.

I did find myself more dedicated in attending all classes and tutorials than my younger friends. Part of this was due to the fact I needed to pay attention as I’d been out of the learning loop for a while, and part of it was because I knew what failing was like, and it wasn’t something I wanted to happen again.

==== Is being a mature student for you? ====

Well, I can’t answer that, because I don’t know you. I know, at the end of the day, it was right for me, even though I can’t wait to leave university and get out into the world again. I needed to prove to myself that I could do it, and I needed the degree to have the career I wanted.

There are lots of things you have to take into account – are you prepared to give up your job? Examine the reasons carefully for doing a degree – is it for job prospects? Is it simply to have a degree? You’re bored, and can’t think of anything else to do?

You do realise that you’ll have to give up work, if you’re employed? This means that your mortgage (if you have one) is at risk and your income will be severely limited for the duration of the course. You might find the course so tough, you spend a lot of your free time working on it, thus cutting out on any part time work.

The only other thing I can offer as advice is that if you are considering returning to education, try and find out as much as you can about financial incentives for mature students because I’m sur
e there were things on offer that I never knew about. If you can do it, talk to your local education authority (LEA), or even a finance officer of your local university.

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