Back to School

Since I'm thinking about starting a graduate program in sociology or social work research sometime in the next year or two, I decided to take an undergraduate class at the university where Tom teaches to explore my interests. "Topics in Politics: Social Problems and Social Issues" met for the first time on Monday, and before class I was surprised to find myself nervous. I have always done well in school, and I've always enjoyed it, so I hadn't anticipated how anxiety-provoking it would be to find myself a student again. It has been 8 years since I was a student in an academic class; the last time I was in a classroom, I was the one in charge.

My anxiety rose when my fellow students came in. Although the class is offered through the university's continuing education program, for some reason this particular class has attracted a large number of "traditional" (aka "regular") undergraduates. As far as I could tell, I was the oldest person in the room besides the teacher.

Having an extra decade of life experience came in handy, though, because I knew I could tolerate my anxiety and it would subside. We discussed social norms, and then we had to write descriptions of our social background and beliefs. Feeling out of place, I jotted down my "defining personal characteristics"; the first one was my age. I even made myself share with the class when the teacher asked for volunteers, and I admitted right off that I felt old. I know from years of writing that you might as well express your fears and move forward, and that doing so will allow you to connect with people more than you would if you pretended to be perfect.

I have a strange sense of vertigo when remember I have been taking college courses for nearly half my life; I took my first class, a creative writing course at Penn State, the summer after my freshman year of high school. At that time, some of my current classmates were about as old as Ben is now. In some ways, I am vastly different from my fifteen-year-old self--but at the same time, I feel a fond kinship when I think of her sitting in that first college classroom, jittery but excited to learn.