I didn't want to put this in Mark's item, but thought it might be a 
worthwhile separate discussion.  How many others here have thoughts or 
intentions to go back to school after being out for a while?

How many have actually done it?  Where did you go -- community college, 
business college such as the University of Phoenix, U-M or another 
university?  Has anyone done it on-line?

How many are like me, went to college but didn't finish a degree, and 
would like to do so or intend to do so?

How many have wanted to, or tried to, start work toward a graduate 
degree?

Did anyone go back to school to change occupations?

This item is for discussing that kind of stuff.

21 responses total.

I sent away for my transcripts from Michigan Tech today, and intend to 
look into completing my bachelor's degree somewhere.  I looked into it 
last year, too, half-heartedly.  It's time to do so more seriously 
now.  My employer pays for tuition.  My life is in turmoil anyway.  
There's really no excuse not to take a shot at it.

I don't care a whole lot about what I get a degree in, but after 
attending Michigan Tech for 8 years and not getting one, I feel like 
I've left something undone.

I'll have to work on it after work; I can't quit my job and take 
classes full time.  I visited Cleary College last year.  They said they 
weren't sure they'd take me; they'd have to look at my transcript.  I 
told them it was pretty horrible.  Cleary has a lot of pretty boring 
business type degrees, but for me, getting a degree is really the goal, 
not getting any specific type of degree.

If I could manage it, I would be most interested in a history degree.  
It would be useless for my job, or any job I would ever take, but I'd 
learn a lot of stuff I'd like to know more about.  When I checked last 
year, neither U-M nor EMU had much in the way of history classes 
offered in the evening, so history might not be do-able.

John, you might take a different perspective:  What major does most of my
degree work fit in?  This is akin to the question "What hoops do I have to
jump through to get a degree, and how can I minimize the number?"

You might find that a "general studies" degree from UM would suit you fine.
Or your credits might already fill most of the requirements for a psychology
or technology degree at EMU.  

When I was finishing my undergraduate degree at the grand age of 32, I walked
into the counselor's office and said "How can I graduate at the end of this
term?"

He said, "Yadda, yadda, yadda"

I said, "You didn't hear what I said.  I intend to graduate in December.  What
do we have to agree to today to make that happen?"  

When he saw I was serious, we worked out a plan that counted some courses as
required courses because we interpreted the intent of the the requirement,
not the letter of the requirement.  

I carried 18 credit hours that term and worked 50 hours a week as a department
manager at my company.  I had no other life.  But I did have a degree four
months later.  

You probably aren't as intent on finishing in one semester.  But you might
be able to.  I got the counselor to agree that it was merely hoops we were
looking at, and to sign off on my graduation requirements slip.  That's really
all it took: his signature at the bottom of a form.  

And all it took to get him to sign was to negotiate terms with him.  What
worked in my favor was that I was older and intent on graduating.  I was
not some 22 year old whining about having to follow the rules.

Jep - after three years, I moved back to Kalamazoo and talked to Western about
readmission.  I'm paying for it on my own until financial aid approves me,
so it's slow progress.  I feel better about myself, though, even though it's
taking a while.  Those three years gave me the maturity to realize how much
I want a degree and how much it doesn't matter that I won't be 22 when I get
it.

I've worked in my field and gained a ton of "life experience" during that
time.  Now, I can't imagine going through four/five years and then plopping
myself into the real world at 22 years old, without any clue on how it works
or how I can affect my life.

I plan to take a similar sabbatical before grad school, to ensure that I am
prepared.

Good luck!  

Way to go, John, I think this could be a great thing.  My transcript from my
first stint in grad school was bad too, but they gave me a second chance -
I bet one of the colleges around here would give you one, too.

I sure admire Colleen's approach to things.

It's never too late.  My mum did rather badly in school her first time around
and didn't go back until my youngest sister was out of the house for at least
part of the day.  She didn't go back full time, either, but she nailed her
bachelor's with flying colors, got into grad school, and now has her own
career that she will be able to re-kickstart once she stops having to take
all these pesky days off. ;)  She graduated in her mid-fourties.  It's
definitely never too late.

I went back almost 3 years ago.  Got my Associates last June at age 49.5. 
One of my instructors, who happens to be the computer department head, keeps
telling me to transfer to EMU or UM and get a Bachelors and he will hire me
to teach at WCC.  STeve and I are seriously talking about it.

Wow.  I think you should go for it.

I worked in the "real world" as a technical writer (and some other things in
between ;-) for six years before I went to law school.  I think it really
helped, not only because I had time to figure out what I wanted to do, but
also because I had the life skills to do well without going nuts in the
high-pressure environment that is the American law school today.

I am 41 years old, and took my last class at Michigan Tech about 15 
years ago.

Colleges now are a lot different than they were then.  Tech was a place 
where the professors were against you for your first couple of years.  
I had one calculus class where the professor told us at the start that 
1/3 would get As, but half would fail the class.  I was not studious, 
and was among the half who failed.

My GPA was right around a 2.0.  I had senior standing when I left, in 
the technical communications department.  I've been told that U-M is 
really pretty accommodating to non-traditional students such as 
myself.  I'd find it impressive to get a degree from U-M, and they 
certainly have a lot more interesting curriculum to offer than Cleary 
College.   What do you do, make an appointment with someone in 
admissions, explain your circumstances, and see what they say?

re #2: I don't have the freedom to take 18 credits at a time, nor the 
inclination.  I'd be happy enough to take a class or two per semester 
for a year or two.

There's something to be said for getting the quickest degree possible, 
since a degree really is my basic goal.  I wouldn't object at all to 
enjoying what I study, though.  I don't want to change careers, I'm 
happy in what I do.  I don't expect a degree to change my life in any 
significant way.  That's not what a degree is about for me.  I hate 
giving up on anything important, and have felt like I was a quitter for 
leaving school without finishing.

re #3: I shouldn't need financial aid, anyway.  My employer will likely 
pay for as many classes as I can take per year.

re #4: I admire Colleen's approach, too, but could never pull it off 
myself.

Your example got me thinking about it again.

re #5: That's the kind of story I want to hear more of!

I started back by just showing up at a class.  But I had a little more free
time than most people.  I would start by looking at the admission rules on
the web.  They probabl list a contact person who can help with
non-traditional students.

I have been considering going back to school for many years.  I would 
like to finish my undergrad degree as soon as I figure out what I want to 
get it in.  

Re #8:  I think you actually should just go to Admissions and talk to
        someone there.

Yes, I think I'll do that once I get the transcript.

My mother also took many years off before going back to school.  She was
married just after completing her bachelors, and then I and my siblings kept
her rather busy for a while.  About five years ago, she up and decided that
she wanted to go to law school.  So she got the test prep books, studied, and
did well enough to get into Michigan.  I don't know how well she did there,
relatively speaking, but she graduated on time, and is now practicing in Ann
Arbor.  

I'm going to be at loose ends career-wise soon, and have given real thought
to taking a year or two to try to get my masters in Computer Science.  What's
the financial situation like for a grad student these days?

I went back to school 4 years ago. I was a junior at LSSU but with semi 
bad grades. Only 38 of my credits transferred to EMU. Since then, I 
have been taking 1 or 2 classes a semester. I have taken a few 
semesters off here and there too. I am a senior now. If I were like 
cmmgee, I could finish by next spring. I dont want to do that. I have 
signed up for 2 classes next fall and I will probably take one class 
next winter. After that I will need to take 3 more Econ classes, 1 more 
Psychology class and a science class. I *might* do that all in one 
semester but probably not. I will probably graduate in spring 2004 but 
I wont be upset if it turns out to be december of 2004. 

I sometimes wish I had done college at this pace in the first place. I 
stay sane this way. I dont really like school, it turns out. *shrug*

I didn't appreciate school as much until I didn't have the money to go.  I
missed it.  Plus, when you pay for it out-of-pocket, you tend to go to class
and finish with a decent grade.  Something about wasting $450 per class...
;-)

I've always been kind of sorry I didn't get at least a master's degree. 
I think my engineering career would have gone a lot differently than it 
did if I'd had an advanced degree. I might actually still be an 
engineer, for one thing. I know it's not too late, but...

On the other hand, since I had less invested in engineering, I didn't 
feel so bad about getting out of it when I did.

Seems like John should be looking at WCC.  They offer a broad range of
degrees, and you could likely find something that a lot of his previous work
would apply to.  They have lots of evening classes and are very accomodating
to part time students.  They are really pretty good too.  I don't know how
they compare to Cleary, but WCC would be my first thought if the goal is just
to get a usable degree out of his past work with a minimum of additional work.
They do have a broad curriculum, and maybe John would have an easier time
finding interesting courses there.  It's a lot easier to do something like
this if it is interesting to you.

A WCC degree will qualify you for jobs that require a degree.  It won't
impress people all that much.  If you want an impressive degree, then UofM
is worth looking into, but it's going to take a considerably larger investment
of work and time to go that route.

Glenda should definately try the transfer.  That'd be cool.

I didn't know WCC offered degrees.

I got my transcript today.  I haven't dared look through it yet; it's 
abysmal and I don't much want to dredge through it over the holiday 
weekend.  It'll be soon enough to do that on Tuesday.

I dropped out of MTU after my freshman year, with a GPA of something
like 1.9.  A few years later, I started taking courses part time,
at Northern Virginia Community College.  I didn't take courses while
in California, nor in Massachusetts.  When I started up again, the
University of Maryland had the contract, so that's where I took classes.
Eventually, I decided to go back to school full-time, so I re-applied to
MTU and applied to Harvard, Yale, Indiana and Michigan; the first and last
accepted me.  I started at UM in September, 1987, graduating in May, '91.
(My first child was 2 months shy of her first birthday when I started,
and my second child was 2 months past his second birthday when I finished.)

I've no idea why Michigan accepted me.  I did have pretty good SAT scores,
and good grades in the courses I took part-time.

I have not yet completely abandoned the idea of the PhD.  But I know I won't
get a job in the field.  Ah well.

I have one Associates and two certificates and am half way to a third,
planning to get at least a fourth.  The fourth gives me another Associates.

I intend to take those classes even if I do transfer (#3 and #4 are Cisco
certification from WCC which actually prepare you to take the CCNA and CCNP
certification tests from Cisco).

I would halfway like to take Cisco's CCIE test.  Three days of intense testing
$3500 with an 80% failure rate.  What an achivement if I managed to be one of
the 20%. This is one of the points of thought and talk that we are going
through.  What do I  want to be when I grow up.

This is one of the points of thought and talk that we are going through.  What
do I  want to be when I grow up.

I would really like to take those Cisco classes. We had a Cisco guy 
come here to give us a short 2 day training for their routers which we 
are going to start using soon. It was really interesting! 

But, I have to finish my undergrad degree in Econ first. I have a list 
of classes I am going to start taking at WCC as a reward for *finally* 
getting my regular BA degree. :)

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