After 15 years of being a stay at home mom, I decided to go back to school. More than 17 years before I had gotten married then quickly dropped out of high school in my senior year. Two years later and some sense later I decided to get my G.E.D. but after that I wanted to stay at home with our kids until they ‘no longer needed mommy’. My husband made enough money to take care of us, so it wasn’t ‘necessary’ for me to work. Days turned into months and months turned into years.
In the early years when my kids were still curtain climbers I was fine and always busy. Then came the school years and they still needed me for school functions, lots of doctors and dentists appointments, bazaars and so much more. Finally came the years when they entered middle and high school. They were finding their own way, making or have had lots of friends they wanted to ‘hang’ with, do stuff with and other than being a taxi at times, they no longer ‘needed’ me as they did when they were younger. I was being ‘replaced’ by more important issues such as ball games, over-niters and the phone, which seemed to be semi-permanently attached to their ears.
I now found myself with tons of time on my hands and was getting increasingly bored. I thought I would go to work but did not have a lot of skills which ended up giving me not very many opportunities except for the odd gas station attendant or cashier. Not that those jobs are odd or that bad, but they were not what I wanted and they did not pay very well. My sister in law and her husband then asked me if I thought of going back to school. Me? After 15 years, back to school? I really had not thought about it for so long that the idea never even entered my head till they mentioned it. I was scared and excited all at the same time. I really did want to go back to school but could I? Should I? I decided to take the plunge and my in-laws helped to make the beginning process such a whirl I did not even have time to think.
First they gave me the college handbook with all of the degree’s the college offered and told me to think about what I would like to do. They reminded me that if I chose one degree but felt that I did not like that path after taking some classes for it, I would not be stuck with taking that certain degree only; I could change it anytime I wanted to. I have done that too. I have probably changed my major at least 4 times since I started. They also brought it to my attention that I could take distance classes only for the first couple of semesters if they fit into my degree path, which could help ‘wean’ me into getting back into studying and re-arranging my life around not only my kids’ school life, but also now, mine. Having the chance to be able to take classes at home really appealed to me and I was eager to start going through the college book.
I looked through it and decided what I would like to do. Of course I was not given much time to make a decision because the very next day they showed up at my house ready to help me ‘get the education ball rolling’. They drove me to the college, had me fill out an admissions application, and then had me fill out financial aid papers. They introduced me to all the people they knew in the offices and explained to them that this was new to me. Doing that they helped me because then everyone was so great in making sure I had all the information I needed to get started taking classes. I was so excited!! Did I mention that classes started the very next Monday and we made this trip on the previous Friday? Oh yeah, it was that quick. This was like a ‘last minute decision’ for me and I was signing up for classes like only a couple days before they were supposed to start for that semester. Now that is what I call fate or just plain crazy….either way it has worked out good that fate looked on me like that! My financial aid adviser put my classes on something called ‘pell pending’, which basically means that until all of my paperwork shows up from me filling out my FAFSA, I could take my classes and get my books from their bookstore ‘on charge’.
There are many types of financing for education which helps to allow just about everyone the chance to go to college if they would like to. You have your FAFSA, which is your governmental federal aid that you don’t have to pay back. You have scholarships which also do not have to be paid back, most of the time. There are city, state and federal grants available for all different types of reasons; each area having different types of offerings available (you have to ask the financial aid department what is offered that you can take advantage of to help finance your education). Not everywhere has a large offering of financial aid, which leads to some people needing student loans to help fund their education. Student loans help out when you really need the money, for gas, for food while you are attending school, to help replace the money you may be making or could be making if you were not taking classes. It is not though something to take lightly, the responsibility of getting a student loan. You MUST pay these loans back, although the lenders are really helpful when it comes to working with you if you happen to have any type of financial instability or problems with getting a job after school is over. Although they and I am sure you, would hope you would not have such troubles, since the reason you would be going back would be so that you could have a better life, a better education and maybe even more money coming into your financial life.
The first semester for me was the hardest. Going back to studying and taking tests. Tests can usually be arranged to be taken at a local college near you, if your college is farther off than your city (the school I attended was like fifty miles away, although there was a local college like five miles away that I took my tests at). Your tests may even be taken at a local church or somewhere else where an approved ‘proctor’ (someone who would ‘watch over you’ while you take your test that is approved of by the school) might be. I liked being able to study on my own time, take my tests when I felt comfortable doing so (on the most part) and still being able to have a life, while attending college. Distance classes, which are what I took for the first year and a half or more of school, are a bit more lenient when you have to take your tests for their classes; or at least most of them are. Some of the classes you MUST take the tests by a certain date, each and every week or every other week by a certain date. Others say, as long as you take all of the tests by the last date available (usually a week before the semester is over) you will be okay. It just depends on the teacher.
After the first semester everything just seemed to fall into place for me and I was able to work school and my family life out with lots of ease and comfort. My studying habits were ever changing for each class I took and even my family said they could see the progress I was making with every good grade that I got. I gained more and more confidence as each semester passed and now I am getting ready to head down another road which is not quite as scary as it might have been two years ago if I had not had the experiences I have now. I graduated with my Associates in Social Science a few months ago and getting ready to work on getting my Bachelors. I would have never thought I would be going for a Bachelors degree a few years ago, and especially when I first started to go back to school. I now KNOW that in two years time, I will have my Bachelors in Accounting and I will be done with school and be able to get a job that not only makes me proud to say I am working it, but will give me the financial stability I will need for my future and my teenagers will need for their college education in the near future.
It may not be an easy road and you may fail a class, or do badly on a paper, but do not let that stop you. You may need to take remedial classes or go slower than I did or maybe even you can go faster, cutting your school time down to less than it would normally take. You never know though, unless you try; until you start, you will not KNOW it is nothing to be afraid of. You will gain more out of going back to school, than you will from all the what if’s you may collect from the thoughts of ‘what if I had went back to school’ or ‘where would I be today ‘if’ I had went back to school’? Take baby steps, go slow if you need to, but take the steps. If I can do it, anyone can! Go ahead! Take the chance! The longer you wait, the longer it will take. So what are you waiting for? There’s no time like the present; go for the Gold! You can do it! I have faith in YOU!
