Cris--my best friend just got her radiology certification about 6 months ago and loves it. Best thing she ever did.

Ana Banana--I do massage but not nails. I just do massage on friends and family mostly. A few old clients from before I let my license lapse. I barter a lot...my hair dresser gives me three cuts for a massage in her home, and my vet gives me vet care for the gang. It's a pretty cool field, but I always wanted to go to college so I did. And anyway, there are so many massage schools in Florida and so many therapists that you have to be really aggressive and totally focused on your practice to succeed. I just got my massage license a couple of years before I got morbidly depressed, and I wasn't very motivated after that. It just kind of slipped away from me.

Deb--With your background, I think something like nutrition or naturopathy would be excellent field for you to go into. Not that a mainstream nutrition program might be the best fit for you, but getting a degree would help you build a whalin' practice as well as satisfy all the snobs who think that having a specific degree is the only way to know anything about a given subject.

The more I think about it, the more I think Naturopathy might be an excellent thing for you to do. Just think: we could call you "Dr. Deb"!

Since your options are probably more open now, and if you don't mind hanging out in the states for a while, there's an excellent natural college called Bastyr in Washington State (Kenmore, where ever that is). They have degrees in Naturopathy, Nutrition, Exercise Physiology, Acupunture...all kinds of things. It's very highly regarded.

Their website seems to be down right now, but here's the URL http://www.bastyr.edu/.

The contact info is:

Bastyr University
14500 Juanita Dr. NE
Kenmore, WA 98028-4966

Phone: (425) 602-3330
Fax: (425) 602-3090

Check it out! Or someplace like it in Canada. Now that you've got some cash, maybe you'll have the time and the material wherewithal to pursue something like this. I assume that's why you're asking for advice...so you can start a new phase of your life now.

And you're right, the real world is easier than school...if you have to rob Peter to pay Paul and scrounge to get through school. It's much less stressful to pay the rent without homework hanging over your head. But if you don't have to worry about the material things, school gets a whole lot easier.

Jana--hope you had fun at your formal!

I wish I could barter with my vet Amylou but unfortunately she isn't into nails. Would come in handy with the zoo I have here. At least the rescue work my daughter and I do doesn't cost us a penny as our vet is great. Steve Irwin uses him as well for his zoo so it must be good.

quote:

Originally posted by DebbieNIR:
I hope I am not too forward asking this. I realize that most of our students are not 25 years old, and so I assume these are second careers or advanced degrees in a current field.

I am considering a career change myself and am intersted in hearing what you did before going to school for your current studies. What made you want to go back to school? Did you find it much harder, giving up income and having less time to spend with your families etc?

I remember thinking that real life was so much easier than school! I am not sure if I can handle it again, and am truly interested in any thoughts on this?

Thanks so much everyone,
Deb

Hi all - I'm back from my party, doing my skin care routine, & thought I'd reply to Deb's post. Forgive me, please, if I get a bit long-winded as Deb's asked a number of questions that require, by their very nature, some long-winded answers (or maybe I'm just making excuses for my long-winded self!) Gee, I would never let my students get away with using the same word or phrase 3 times in a row like I just did, LOL. BTW, the party was fun, good friends, good food, good wine - what more can you ask?

Deb- I love your statement! "most of our students are not 25 years old"! You are being so diplomatic and very very sweet - made me chuckle when I read it!

I was 39 when I went to school full-time; I'll be 52 in May, so I've been in school 13 years (OMG). Before that, I'd worked many jobs, mostly bookkeeping, accts payable, payroll, computer stuff. Then, had children and became a stay-at-home mom (& bookkeeper) for about 7 yrs (wouldn't trade that time for anything in the world, even though it was difficult monetarily). I'd ALWAYS wanted to go to school and had only one college credit (a history class) when I decided to try it. I was still married at the time and my ex & I disagreed on the value of higher ed, among many other things. So, when my youngest daughter went to school full time, so did I. I earned an AA in '94, a B.A. in Letters in '97, an M.A. in History in '99, and am currently ABD on my Ph.D. Like AmyLou, it's been straight through for me. It has had its difficult moments, including a separation in early '94, divorce in late '95, which in many ways was much harder on the kids than on me but, all in all, was the right thing to do for all of us. The reason I'm writing all this junk about my divorce is that I'm not certain I would've taken the step to divorce, nor had the courage to, had I not been in school.

I'm not familiar with the Canadian system, but the U.S. system (Pell Grants) and being older (highly motivated, paying for college myself, having to care for two daughters - therefore I worked hard & garnered scholarships and fellowships) enabled me to go through my undergrad years having only to work part-time, mostly - BUT we were very very poor still. Much of the grant system, scholarships, & fellowships either end or become far less available in graduate school. So, to answer one question - giving up income was indeed very hard. In these past 13 years, including working full-time as adjunct faculty several recent semesters, I have yet to rise above or even right to the U.S. base poverty level, but that's in the field of education.

I don't know that it was less time with my family - as an undergrad and when I was doing course work as a grad, I was fortunate in that I usually was able to take them to school and pick them up after school, prepare & eat dinner together (excluding a few yrs of nighttime seminars), etc. This is one of the *pros* to being a student - fairly flexible schedules and lots of holidays! It would have been different if I'd had to work full-time all those years, while going to school.

Real life vs. student life. As in all things, it's a trade off. Cons - poverty, poverty, & more poverty; funky hours sometimes; report card day (yep, the three of us compared report cards at the end of each semester! Boy, I felt the pressure to make good grades!). As it was my dream, not my daughters' dream, I think it was hardest on them - they sacrificed so much - we shopped in thrift stores, I haven't been to the dentist (argh) in a long long while (but the girls have!), we've only taken one (three-day) vacation together (I still intend to take them to Disney World, even if it's when I'm 80!), etc etc. Pros - When my oldest daughter was around 13, she couldn't understand and was embarrassed by having a mom who didn't look like most of her friends' moms - I wore jeans, carried a backpack, didn't work 8 to 5, had long hair, etc etc. When she was around 15, though, she said to me something like, "Mom, I'm so glad you did what you did - moved us to a college/university area, we've met so many different people from all over the world, it's much more interesting than the old (small) town we used to live in." A couple of years later, my younger daughter said much the same. Also, when I began teaching my own classes, my oldest told me she was relieved and happy, now that she could tell her friends I actually DID something for a living, LOL.

That may be one of the hardest things about "going to school" - because students keep odd hours and don't appear to be producing what many consider "useful" things, nothing concrete, then many family & friends just don't understand what it is that we do all day?! Due to pressures of trying to juggle both worlds, we too can lose sight of what exactly it is that we do! Often it's particularly discouraging for graduate students (including law students) - with graduate work, the concrete rewards & feedback come less & less often and fewer and farther between. And, with raising children, it can be a very hard tradeoff, sometimes you have to put aside or delay your advisor's needs & wants (and what would be best for your career), because you HAVE to feed your family and fulfill their needs. Student life is, in many ways, an in-between world, one that can be hard for on-lookers to understand. You have all the real-world adult responsibilties, but are not fully an adult in the academic world - so, student life often is very much a loss of power and autonomy, which can be very difficult to accept and deal with as an adult. And academics is just as competitive as the real world.

My recommendation for anyone thinking of doing this - HAVE A PLAN, a very good one. Set realistic goals, talk with academics in your field, ask for realistic timelines on achieving your goals, enlist as many allies as possible & explain to them what it will take to achieve your goals (kids, other family members, friends, those academics, et al.). And be realistic - if your goal is to obtain a Ph.D., find out the average time it takes to obtain one - and commit yourself to the long haul. You truly have to examine your priorities and know that you want that degree. After 13 years, I definitely am ready to stop being a student!

The payoff, however? Like my children have said to me, I wouldn't trade these past 13 years for anything in the world. Other adult student friends kept telling me "look at the wonderful role model you've been for your kids," and it turned out they were right (in the past few years, my daughters have volunteered that they feel that way). I am a changed person, for much the better. I finally met people just like me and found my niche in the world. I've found, and am still finding, the answer to questions I asked myself for the first 30 or so years of my life - just HOW FAR can I go? Do I have what it takes to be part of the life of the mind? And now I have the great pleasure of teaching others about history. I've made many mistakes in my life and do make many mistakes as a teacher, but I've been fortunate enough to have students say to me "Y'know, I never liked history until I took your class."

Geemanee, please forgive me for the length of this post and for its, at times, maudlin nature. If I'd known how to do so, I would've emailed it straight to Deb, rather than taking up space on the forum.

Deb, I hope this gives you a bit of an idea what it's like to be an adult student - I've failed to mention lots of pertinent (sp?) things but, frankly, my post is far too long as it is and it's 2:40 in the morning here - I'm tired & the wine is taking its toll...my brain is shutting down.

G'night,
Jana

Dedicated or stupid? LOL

The stories on this forum - all these amazing courageous people. I've been so fortunate in my life with many opportunities and, after learning a bit about forum members, admire so many of the people who contribute here.

Deb - you, too, are one courageous person - thanks for sharing. I hope I didn't discourage you from pursuing a dream - didn't mean to do so, just wanted to warn you of some of the pitfalls. But, in the end, it's worth it to go after a dream.

My best to each of you,
Jana

Deb...maybe nutrition and acupuncture? Naturopathy is an arduous, long-haul kind of commitment, but I know that acupuncturists (in Florida, at least) can prescribe some things that a nutritionist might not be able. And it's a two-year program here. Plus the physician-type training carries a little more clout, even though it's acupuncture and not western medicine. I think that extra physician-type ability would expand your capabilities to help people. I also think acupuncture would be extremely cool. I wanted to do it for a while, but changed my mind, again because of the motivation thing. But it's certainly something I'd have done (along with massage) every week if I had the big bucks. I honestly love being stuck with those dang needles!

Jana--you gave an extremely honest look at being a middle-aged college student. LOL Can't add a thing, except that, maybe with a nice "cushion" in the bank it would be a much easier row to hoe. I was only able to make it through with the unwavering support of my family (bless you Mommy if you're reading this) and Voc Rehab (for my hearing loss), but if I'd had a little nest egg I would not have been so needy.

Kathrynn--you use Steve Irwin's vet? That is too cool. Have you ever met him? I've often wondered what it would be like to be in the same room with someone that hyper...

Whoa Deb, had no idea you had been through so much. I'm in shock here. So happy you have won the first part of your lawsuit. My goodness you took a brave gamble there!

Thanks for sharing the information about the drugs. My son took two of the ones you mentioned, Topomax and Valproic acid (Depakote). Depakote ended up being the one he took for two years. Scary to read what you went through. Thank you for sharing your experience. My heart goes out to you. +
Cris

When it comes to vocation, I feel like I have had about three lives. In 1984 I finished my graduate work after defending my disseration on the political theory of John Locke. After publishing in that field and teaching full-time for four years (one year at Rutgers, three at Calvin College), I started a business career, which resulted eventually in running my own game software development company, which I still run. We develop card and classic games, some under our own name (MVP Software), some with other names on them. We once developed a product for Microsoft, but we've also developed titles for Encore, Cosmi, Egames and several others.

In 2001 the computer game market started to collapse, and many developers went bankrupt. MVP continues to exist, but I decided that trying to support a family as a small developer just wasn't likely to be successful an longer, so I worked MVP part-time and started working full-time for an estate planning company teaching seminars on planning issues in the area of trusts, wills, guardianship, etc. That went really well, and within a year they offered me a regional management position, which I accepted.

When I started that management position, my region was third out of three regions in the company in terms of sales. I managed 8 sales teams spread over four states, MI, OH, IN and PA. By the end of my first quarter, we had surpassed the other two regions, and for the next two quarters, we were the #1 region in the company. I enjoyed working with the sales teams, because a lot of what I was doing was teaching them how to be more effective communicators.

Because the company for whom I worked was leary of putting males and females together on sales teams that would be traveling together and staying several days away from home, we had no females in our sales positions at that time. I of course always wanted to hire the best people I could find, and when I needed to fill a position in PA, I hired a woman because she was the best candidate, despite the misgivings of upper management. Then I hired a second woman in IN. Both worked out very well, both are still with the company, and now the company has gotten over that hurdle. A woman was recently hired in MN, and in January the regional manager who hired her told me he received no push back from the company at all on that hiring decision.

After nine months in management, I got tired of flying out on Monday and flying back home on Friday, as well as trying to be an advocate for the field to upper management, which I felt wasn't listening to what was coming from the field concerning some crucial issues we were facing as a company. So I asked to return to the field, since I felt that I could no longer be an effective advocate for the field. It was tough voluntarily leaving a six figure job, but I was confident that I could go back to being an independend contractor with the company, being paid strictly on commissions, and come out ok.

So I returned to the field, working solely in MI, being home every night (sometimes not until very late, but at least I got there), and it has worked out well. I work strictly with clients now, helping them with mostly financial issues surrounding protecting their estates, working hand-in-hand with the attorneys who prepare their trusts, but doing things for the clients that the attorneys can't do. Many planning issues are outside of the legal arena, closer to financial planning, and I do that, as well as make sure that my clients' trusts are funded properly.

MVP Software also continues to develop new products. We have a new world class Backgammon game currently in the final stages of testing, and it will include our new online gaming service, Classic Entertainment Online, that we have developed from scratch after years of focus group testing a prototype that we had developed. My son now works with me, and he and a friend from college are my two main developers. We have an artist who does all of our artwork on a contract basis, as well as a contract sound/music guy. MVP Backgammon Professional will be hands down the most complete and best backgammon game on the market, and at $29.95 will be superior to games costing up to 8x as much. So we're pretty excited about it.

Classic Entertainment Online contains several innovative features designed to build a vibrant online community of classic and card game lovers, and will eventually feature MVP Bridge, MVP Pinochle, MVP Cribbage, MVP Hearts, MVP Spades, MVP Checkers, as well as several other classic games.

I also run a free baseball forum at www.philliesphans.com.

I have four kids, ages 23, 21, 18 and 16 and have been married for over 25 years, yes, to the same woman. We are also very involved in music and sing classical works with the Calvin Oratorio Society. Our oldest son, who is a double major (computer science and music) is a junior at Calvin and just got engaged last week. He and his fiance are planning a June 2006 wedding. She is also a music major and sings and plays the piano and organ (as does our son) as well as the bassoon. Our son plays viola.

Our oldest child is a daughter who has Asberger's Syndrome, sometimes called high-functioning autism. She lives in Brooklyn NY and would love to write for a living. She just received her first acceptance notification for an article to be published, and it will appear in December, since it's Christmas-related.

quote:

Originally posted by DebbieNIR:
I hope I am not too forward asking this. I realize that most of our students are not 25 years old, and so I assume these are second careers or advanced degrees in a current field.

I am considering a career change myself and am intersted in hearing what you did before going to school for your current studies. What made you want to go back to school? Did you find it much harder, giving up income and having less time to spend with your families etc?
Thanks so much everyone,
Deb

Hi Deb,

Congrats on your lawsuit win! Two years is a long time to be battling something in the courts so pleased to hear the end is nigh!

In answer to the thread I'm a HR Manager but Deb I can give you some firsthand feedback on going back to study as a mature age student.

I've just embarked on a Master's in Human Resources and Industrial Relations. I've worked in the human resources field for approximately 7 years but more recently my role is taking me into the industrial relations commission and I felt I would benefit from a theoretical understanding of Industrial Law. I haven't studied for 10 years so was daunted by the prospect. I'm studying by correspondence whilst continuing my fulltime role so needless to say it has meant some sacrifices - mainly in my personal life. Not so much socialising at the moment

My partner is relatively supportive because he is also studying. He hasn't quite worked out how to handle my reactions to stress this studying is causing me but luckily we have pay tv so he can go and hide in front of the tv when I'm having a stress episode ha ha.

I've just submitted my first assignment *yay* and now I'm trying to muster up the motivation to start the second.

My biggest problem is organising myself to get it done. It is early days but I haven't yet sorted out a balance between work, spending time with my boyfriend and friends and getting my study done. I'm sure this will sort itself out.

What are you considering studying?

(sorry for the long post!)

Special assistant DA.

Probation Officer

Just wanted to throw in that I am a mature student as well. Currently I am dodging writing an overdue paper which us English majors are famous or should I say infamous for doing. I graduate in May, do my student teaching for a post-bach teaching certification in August and then it's back into the working world for me (booo!!!). It is hard being a student at times but imho no harder than having a job that you go to everyday and bringing some work home, which I did often. I like being a student, I consider myself a lifelong student. There is still a lot I want to learn.

Kim

Hi Kimmee! LOL on the dodging bit - currently I'm dodging grading papers! My students are gonna kill me (well, not literally!) if I don't get these finished soon.

I, too, will always be a student, there are always things to tickle our imaginations and our intellect. Congrats on your upcoming graduation!

Jana

Wow, we do have some interesting backgrounds here! I feel so bland Deb you have really been through a lot, congrats on getting that long and painful part of your life behind you... and with a check to boot.

I've worked 20 years as a geologist for the federal government. The last several years I've worked part time from home. We moved for DH's promotion and I stayed attached to my old office, which is now about 1000 miles away. I make a few trips a year for field work and spend the rest of my time writing technical reports. My work life is minimal but perfect for me, since I wanted to spend more time raising my 2 kids while I have the chance.

I'm also going through a career *shift*. It is a hard decision when you have a lot of time and education invested in your former career. I wanted to learn and work in GIS software. (It stands for Geographic Informations Systems, that's all I'll say) My problem is that I live in the boonies and even the state schools don't have decent programs in GIS, so I have been doing programs and certifications online. I've been able to get as much work as I want with my time so it has worked out great. People have given me a confused look and ask if I'm giving up geology? I tell them I'm not giving anything up, just adding on

I work as a nurse. I currently work at a long-term rehabilitation center, but I would love to get back into hospice nursing somewhere down the road.

I'm the supervisor of a heart program at a community hospital. I'm always on the computer for one reason or another so the staff has no idea what I am really doing.

WEll im doing my phd in sports and excersise science in Leeds England,,, im focusing on Anti ageing foods and supplements,, I also am a sports centre supervisor at the UNiversity complex and havce worked as a personal trainer for about 10 years. Love my work its my passion in life