College in the 40s

By Michael Bracken

Graduation is seven months away. For a 22-year-old undergrad whose post-baccalaureate plans are nebulous, this might seem like forever. Not for me. In January 2000, at the age of 42, I returned to college after a long academic hibernation. I’ve been a part-time college student ever since, creeping up on a long-delayed graduation.

There is no single, overriding reason why I returned to college after so long away, but I felt trapped between a spouse wrapping up work on her M.A. in journalism and a son in high school who demanded to know why his college dropout father was pushing him into higher education. Unless I returned to college immediately, I would soon be the least-educated person in the house. Baylor’s then-generous tuition remission program for employee family members — my wife is managing editor of an academic journal — eased my concerns about the financial burden of returning to school and ensured that Baylor was the only university to which I applied.

Since returning, I have been challenged in unexpected ways. Baylor does little to accommodate nontraditional undergraduate students, offering no weekend classes and few evening classes. Some offices close during the lunch hour, and entire buildings are sealed tighter than Tupperware promptly at 5:00.

Initially, I held a traditional full-time job, and I often flew across town with minimal regard for traffic signals, hoping to beat the English department’s noon lock-down. Each time I arrived to find the office door handle still warm from the hand of the person who locked it, I taught new and imaginative curse words to Baylor’s abundant squirrel population.

Back then, registration and payment of tuition and fees required a day off work, and the endurance of a sequoia as lines moved slower than frozen molasses. While Baylor’s adoption of electronic solutions reduced my frustration by allowing me to register and pay fees online, the university’s constant upgrading of hardware and software soon outpaced my personal budget. Now I must travel to campus just to find a computer powerful enough to complete these tasks.

Even though I successfully overcame real and imagined obstacles, I had no specific plan when I returned to school. At first, I enrolled in one course each semester. I soon realized that I would qualify for AARP membership while I was still receiving student discounts, so I began doubling and tripling my class load.

When presented with the opportunity to move from conventional employment to self-employment, I embraced it. Rather than forcing my class schedule fit my work schedule, I could adjust my workload to fit my class schedule. This becomes increasingly important as I approach the end of undergraduate life, when only single sections of required courses may be offered each semester.

Hardest to adjust to was the realization that I am no longer young. Desks are too small for someone who gained his “freshman 15" and then spent nearly 30 years developing middle-aged spread, and what’s left of my hair is now more salt than pepper.

Despite raising one of my own, members of the wired generation confound me. While my family didn’t own a television until I reached third grade, my classmates came out of the womb clutching a computer mouse and a cell phone. A once-peaceful walk across campus is now interrupted at every step by the nonstop chatter of the connected, and the beep, chirp and moan of student cell phones regularly disturb classes.

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