Back to school at 60
-- Peter Dorsen
Being an older student can be a shock to the system. All of a sudden you have reading assignments and your teacher, who is younger than you are, springs surprise tests on you. One mentor called them "wraps." The only wrap I ever knew about you ate, and was filled with cream cheese and ham. Yum-yum for the treats. Yuk-yuk for the quizzes.
The quizzes are actually a barometer to see if your brain was plugged in during the class session, or if you were distracted by a ravishing coed your daughter’s age. Your teacher informs you that your assignment is to surf the Internet in your discipline for topics suitable for a final paper.
"Thank God," I reassure myself. At least I’m not going to have to memorize the final lectures from class. Instead, I realize I’m going to have to find and review three scholarly papers, describe what they are all about, and compare them.
Making matters even more intimidating, since I figure I am at a fifth grade level on the computer, I have to locate some downright "scholarly papers." I struggle with wet armpits on the system in the library and realize I need to hike over to the University of Minnesota (UMN) Bio-Medical Library. Victory at last at Diehl Hall with some awesome search engines and librarians. It’s all a process, I realize, and the paper flies.
A lot has changed since my college days in the ‘60s when they were just developing computers and they were big as a barn. The most obvious reality bite about my fellow students—often a third my age—is that they are not weak in this technology. Their papers always look neat and crisp, and I struggle with the font and margins. They type away on their laptops; I don’t own one.
Another salient truth is that the majority of my youthful compadres are juggling at least 12 credits while I am struggling with eight. What with the reading, studying or paper writing, I can easily fill a couple days just preparing for my two classes. I am wondering whether efficiency is one of the things to go when you enter the "Viagra generation." However, anyone older than I ask tells me that they always have had trouble remembering names. Why didn’t Hubert H. Humphrey or Paul Wellstone?
Then there is the infamous midterm or final. The only way I discovered to excel is "The Study Group." There just seems to be one enlightened soul in the group who has figured out how to distill all the facts into chunks of absorbable knowledge. Amazing. Clunk, clunk ca-chink, and it enters my gray matter. Mirabile dictu, amazing.
I am heartened that using the brain—like physical exercise—seems to protect memory and mental acuity. Another twist on the "if you don’t use it you’ll lose it" studies also suggest there are mental benefits ascribed to three sessions a week of strength training. Thank the Lord I exercise as well.
Let’s not underestimate the significance of anxiety or depression on thinking or loss of mental capacity. School has been the perfect antidote when I was unexpectedly separated from my profession.
School has meant turning to a new discipline—becoming a chemical dependency counselor.
Certainly, my decision to switch at the age of 60 has meant for me some real paranoia—if I had the brain cells, the recall and the memory to cut the mustard.
Almost surprisingly so far so good. What I will do is bring a boatload of life’s experiences to my new career. But, you know, maybe I will need to carry around a laptop or a palm pilot hooked up to a foldable keyboard in my next life as a chemical dependency counselor.
|
