After 17 years, quitting work to go back to school

I think I am gonna go back to school.

do it! i did/am. it fuckin' rules. i'm combining part-time study with full-time work right now, which is a lot better than it sounds: although it still takes up the majority of my time, my job (with which i'm increasingly disillusioned) is no longer my primary focus.

next step is to go part-time at work, although that'll be ... interesting.

fundamentally: if it came down to it, i'd rather be skint and studying something i love :)

I didn't finish school the first time around, because I got an incredible job. I lost that job 2 years ago and have been just kind of bumming around and playing music and doing whatever I want. Now, I have to admit, the only thing depressing about going back to school is feeling old, and all my friends being grads already.

It's lame, but it's how I feel.

grimly, what are you studying now?

roxy, what will you be studying?

jed_: psychology.

roxy: there are bloody loads of us auld gets knocking around glasgow, for instance -- we've even got our own society and bar ;) sure, it's a bit weird sitting in a tutorial with dudes who were born in the year "technique" came out, for instance, but only if you actively think about it -- if (like me) you're more caught up in what you're actually studying, you tend to habituate very quickly.

I will be finishing my English undergrad and getting a teaching certificate.

I haven't even started back and already I'm sick of the paperwork.

Yes. That is how they get you.

You're younger than me, aren't you roxy? Or about the same age? You'll like school way more this time around (although you will be even more annoyed with the administrative idiocy and bureaucracy), I bet.

The predicament I'm in is that I'd only feel motivated to study something I find interesting and enjoyable, whilst work has eventually ground the concept of enjoyment/fun out of me so much that I no longer longer really know what I'd enjoy and what I wouldn't.

I need a year of doing absolutely nothing to see what I'm still interested in at the end of it.

Yeah, I like school much better the second time around (did only 3 months of uni ten years ago). However, there are no mature students on my course and I have to admit, like the old bitch that I am, that I get frustrated when it's just me who's seen the film/read the book before a seminar, cos it just makes the discussion flat and too dominated by one person. I don't like being that person! So I'd suggest to anyone donig this that it's better to go to a place where there are a few older dudes knocking around. Unless you like the sound of your own voice, in which case go to a wee college populated by funtime party-animals fresh out of sixth form.

I had to have a long hard thing about what I was interested in when I chose my course, cos I realised it wouldn't necessarily be the same as the stuff I was into at school. But in the end, I went for one of my A level subjects anyway. Worth really pondering, though.

...and after a year off, I worry that I'd find all I was interested is the listening to music and smoking dope - pretty much what I got out of university the first time round.

OTM.

Casuistry: I'm 27.

That's five years younger than me! Also, the average age at my school is 26. You're at a great age to go back.

I NEVER LEFT OH NOES. (Working at a school where you never have to take finals or write papers but you can read all the interesting books = :-D )

seriously, i cannot recommend this plan enough.

I got a huge grant!

yay!

fuck, i need to start thinking about a lot of shit very seriously, very soon. cocks.

o ye: and the novelty of the whole student thing pales somewhat when you realise YOU HAVE TO DO EXAMS AGAIN. piss :)

I have this repeating dream wherein I go back to finish my PhD and I enroll in some class and totally forget about it and then it's like the last week of the semester and I'm all "oh shit".

I wonder how Perry the threadstarter is getting on, five years later.

I sort of did this last year, when I went back to college to do teacher training, and I kind of loved it...except it turned out that teaching was a really bad choice for me. The general being-back-at-school thing was great though. I'd finished my first degree feeling convinced that I hated academia and never wanted to go back. But actually I'd just been studying in a department that really didn't suit my learning style. If you can find somewhere where this isn't the case then I think that yeah, spending all day every day just hanging out learning new stuff is probably the best way you can ever spend your time, innit?

spending all day every day just hanging out learning new stuff is probably the best way you can ever spend your time, innit?

Yeah, definitely. I would have stayed in skool my whole life if they hadn't made me stop taking but 2 classes a year and start doing real research.

i'm considering trying to go back part-time and keep my full-time job - unlike grimly i actually quite like my job though. has anyone done this and, you know, had a life?

also this will be one of those new-fangled courses conducted on the internets.

I keep thinking I should finish my damn PhD but the thought of actually having to think again (after 10 years of mostly childcare) makes my brain hurt.

the whole student thing pales somewhat when you realise YOU HAVE TO DO EXAMS AGAIN

This would be horrible. I still have dreams where I'm in a school hall doing an exam I am woefully unprepared to do and when I awake and find myself in my bed with nothing to revise for I am very happy. No exams for PhD though right, just interrogation by your peers?

ahah - I have this exact dream at least twice a year

I really need to go back to school and brush up on my horrible math skills. Maybe just take a handful of courses. I'm stuck in a career rut and the only way out (and up) is to go back. The main thing holding me back is my student loans. If I go back I wouldn't be able to pay as I go - I basically live paycheck to paycheck as is - so I'd be adding to the already overwhelming albatross that is my student loan debt.