My Desire To Return To College Is Palpable

I went to university for the first time at the age of thirty-seven.

I’ve penned this line so many times that my regular readers must be tired of seeing it by now. It doesn’t make it any less true, and although it feels redundant to state it again, for any new readers, I went to university for the first time at the age of thirty-seven.

I hated high school!

My five years at the all-girls school in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, with their putrid green uniforms, was difficult for me.

I was the odd one out. The gay girl who didn’t know she was gay. A self-imposed class clown surviving the hetero-normative classrooms of the eighties with whispers of boyfriends and illicit trysts.

I disliked studying intensely. Most of the subjects were boring and of no interest to me. I did, however, enjoy biology which, coincidentally, was taught by a masculine woman who lived with one of the physical education teachers (surprise surprise). The girls snickered behind their backs while still respecting them for their outstanding performance as teachers.

The accounting teacher took a shine to me and seemed to have more faith in me than I had in myself. Years later, I found out that Miss Gay was indeed gay.

Yip, that was her last name — ironic, isn’t it?

Her gaydar must have gone off when she laid her eyes on me that first class in tenth grade. From my perspective, it’s the only reason she could have pushed me as hard as she did, as I don’t believe that my accounting skills were anything spectacular. Maybe she just wanted the little lesbian in the front row to succeed.

I’m sure you can guess by now that the last place I wanted to be after high school was back in a classroom.

I headed off to Roseburg, Oregon as a short-term exchange student, and when I returned to South Africa, it was too late in the year for me to enroll in anything new, academically.

Get a job or go to a secretarial college.

After hanging around the house for a few months, my parents gave me an ultimatum: get a job or go to a secretarial college. That was one of the worst places you could put me, even today. I don’t believe that there is a single thing wrong with being a secretary or having a job with administrative duties, but for me, it’s a slow journey to hell.

Suffice it to say I got a job in a bank.

Over the next twenty years, I worked in banking, foreign exchange, recruitment, IT, administration, and business development.

Then I got bored.

“My daughter’s brilliant midlife crisis.”

That’s how my mother referred to me enrolling at university in my mid-thirties. I didn’t see it as such. I had simply gotten bored with the humdrum of life and wanted to expand my mind.

I applied to the University of Western Australia as a mature-aged student and was accepted into the hallowed halls of higher learning. I started with one unit — just one, to see if my brain could still process information at an academic level after being out of a classroom for twenty years.

I took LING1101: Linguistics: Language and Communication. I stared in awe at the professor as she delved into the differences between semantics and pragmatics. I loved every moment of being on campus. The students relaxing on the grass between classes, the cafes providing much-needed caffeine, the libraries filled with the sounds of computer keyboards clicking.

My joy at walking the hallowed halls was indeed palpable.

I loved my class and it showed. At the end of the semester, I nervously entered the student portal to see if I had earned a higher distinction for the unit.

Twenty years after I finished high school, I could still do it. I could study and get good grades.

My confidence grew, and I took two units the next semester and three the following one. According to university policy, I was now considered a full-time student, and I felt it.

I dropped a day at work to accommodate my study schedule, and despite working only four days a week, according to the labour laws of Australia, I was still working full-time.

I kept up a schedule of studying and working full-time for an entire year. I was exhilarated, my mind expanded as I lost myself in academic journals and university assignments.

I was exhausted by the time the end of each semester rolled around, collapsing in a neat little puddle after the final exams.

It took me two years studying part-time to complete the units I needed for my first-year credits, and I couldn’t bear the thought of keeping up that pace for another four years. The solution was to leave my full-time job, get two part-time jobs, and register for a full-time course load, which is exactly what I did.

After two long years of juggling jobs, courses, friendships, the odd relationship, and a lot of home hopping, I made it through. In March 2015, I crossed the dais to shake the hand of the university chancellor as some of my friends whooped in the back of the hall.

That single moment remains one of the best of my life. I now had some letters behind my name and, damn, had I worked hard for them!

The eternal student had been awakened.

I was ever so slightly addicted to the rush of knowledge and had gone from a “D” student in high school to an “A” student in university.

Despite academic fatigue from the rollercoaster of the previous four years, I immediately enrolled and embarked on my second degree, which I committed to completing part-time.

On March 11th, 2017, I crossed the dais for a second time with two bachelor’s degrees under my belt and no immediate desire to study further.

A little over a year later, I was enrolled at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where I studied for a semester. Unfortunately, despite being elated at being on a campus again, financial constraints forced me to quit and return to the workforce.

The desire has grown ever stronger.

I want it! I want it down to the core of my being. I want to be a college student again.

Since my exit from UTSA, I haven’t been able to quell the taste for knowledge. And yes, I hear some of you saying, “You don’t need to go to college to acquire knowledge.” Of course, I don’t. You are 100% correct.

But I want to!

It’s not only the knowledge I covet but the experience as well. Walking the corridors as I enter lecture halls filled with inquiring minds elates me. Afternoons on the quad as students talk, laugh, toss a football or debate life’s questions is my form of voyeurism.

Poring over texts and assignments while sipping on a coffee in the cafe brings me solace. The frenzied clicking of keyboards in the library as students frantically complete homework and assignments delivers immense joy.

It is in the huddle masses of students yearning to breathe free, that I find peace.

I have my sights set on being a student once more, and my sole focus right now is to raise the money to get there.

The eternal student is on the hunt for another hit.

Please feel free to buy me a coffee if you like what you read.