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December 9, 2004
Young at Heart
One possible drawback to being a nontraditional student is the fact that you are usually older than most of your classmates. At Normandale there was enough of a mix of traditional and nontraditional students that I didn't feel like I was so different from everyone else. The U of M is another story altogether. During the first month at the U, I definitely felt like the ol' granny on campus. One of my classmates is 19. NINETEEN!! Other classmates are just turning 21 so, of course, feeling the need to take full advantage of their newfound freedom. :) I can't even count the number of times that, just this semester, I mentioned to my classmates something about my husband and the univeral response is always, "you're married??" My answer is, "yes, six years." "SIX YEARS???!!! How old ARE you??!!" When I tell them I'm 26 their mouths drop open and they claim they can't believe it. One of my classmates actually thought for the longest time that I was lying about my age and even after showing him my drivers license he still insisted that I had to be younger and that the license must be a fake. Granted, he wasn't completely sober at the time, but this is what I run into constantly. Is 26 so old?? I actually had a student the other day say, "well at least you're still young at heart." Young at heart??? I'm 26! I'd BETTER be young at heart! Don't start peddling dentures to me quite yet, I may still have a few years left.
Posted by watn0007 at December 9, 2004 3:05 PM
Comments
26????wooow? didn't see that coming? I don't mean it in a bad way, but I never thought that you were 26, and nothing wrong with being 26, cause everyone would be 26 oneday. but when you said you were married for six years, i thought about it before reading the next line...I was like how old is she...29? or how old was she when she got married? 16 or 17? I would never imagine that you were 26, but I think you must did a lot of exercise, cause your appearance and your age doesn't go together. Oh, you know what maybe, yopu could one of those advertisers... infocommercials...
Fianlly good luck with your education and family. It is hard to go to school and at the same time have a family, and I admire what/how you doing. I hope the best for you with your future.
Posted by: Salah at December 13, 2004 3:42 PM
Salah your response just cracks me up - it totally matches Tonia's blog entry and just backs up what she is saying.
Tonia - 26 years old is damn young. I went to Normandale too and even in two of my classes here there are a lot of students in their 30's and 40's.
Posted by: Stephanie Smith at December 13, 2004 8:01 PM
Great blog! I, too, was a "non-traditional" undergrad--a long time ago. Because of my "maturity," I was allowed to help teach a social psych class once as an undergrad. I was doing a session on social conformity or somesuch using the Jonestown mass suicide as an example and one of the students (a "traditional" undergrad) asked if my lesson was based on a TV show she had seen about this! I was so surprised to learn that even though I was only a few years older than her, her only exposure was through a made-for-TV movie while I witnessed the "real thing" as a current news event.
Now I am back for more as a "non-traditional" graduate student. In our dept, tho, there is a wider range of ages in the graduate program so I don't often feel quite so ancient.
All the best to you!
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