My post secondary educational career has never been stellar. I found high school relatively easy and had a place on the honour roll over the last three years of school, which also included various sports and activities including three seasons of football, which, of course, entailed 2 hour, practices every day for a couple months. I know I was fortunate because school came easily to me and that is not something everyone can say.
The only thing is, I really did not have to work very hard to get good marks, and when I went to university straight out of high school, I held in for one semester and totally bombed out my second. I simply did not have the discipline or habit of putting that much effort into my work. I went to tech school the following year and achieved accounting, marketing and business admin diplomas and earned generally decent marks in doing so.
BUT, I always had wished that I had gotten my degree instead. I had been living a couple of hours from the closest university for 10 years and tried taking night classes and correspondence but never was very successful. (I still do not have the greatest work ethic when it comes to reading text books (honestly, have you ever read an accounting text?!))
The last couple of years at my job I started to dislike what I was doing. This was for a variety of reasons of which a lot of the blame can probably be placed on my shoulders. I simply wasn’t the same person when I started there (single and 25) as when I left married and 35) and I really did not fit the organization anymore and as a result little meaningless things would bother me. I think when that starts to happen, it is most beneficial to both the employee and the organization for the employee to move on. I still had this desire in the back of my mind that I wanted to finish my schooling and this may have been a part of my desire to move on as well.
My wife, who happens to be considerably younger than me, had been talking about furthering her schooling as well, and I always told her if she wanted to go back to school full time, she should and we could sell our house and I would find a job in the city. I loved the small town I lived in, have many great friends and acquaintances there, but grew up in the city and was missing city life by then anyways. One day in response to my telling her to go to school she asked me why I didn’t go back full time.
This was an absolute revelation for me. I had never once considered going back to school full time because it never seemed like an option for some reason. I immediately wanted to do it (although it took me some time to convince myself to do it). I applied and was accepted to the University of Regina (in my hometown, where I had bombed out years earlier), we told only our parents (at first), who were very supportive (I am truly blessed with people around me who are concerned for my happiness), and we bought a little one-bedroom condo in Regina. A couple of months before my start date I gave my notice at work and was able to tell everyone I knew about what I was doing. I think there was only one or two people who truly did not get it. I had one person ask me when I told them “why!?” Really, what can you say to some like that, if they don’t get it straight off, they never will. I understand the question; I had a good job that paid really well and I was giving it up for two years of no income followed by uncertain job prospects.
Most people were so, so supportive. I had a lot of friends that told me “I wish I could do what you are doing” or, “I wish I had the guts to do what you are doing.” The funny thing is, I was scared as hell. I mean before I knew it I was walking into a classroom with 50 or 60 people almost half my age to do something I wasn’t even sure I had the skills to accomplish. As icing on the cake, on the first day, in my English 100 class our prof told us that if we made one of three certain grammatical errors on our final essay, she would start marking that essay from 50% and deduct from there and that we should be prepared for our marks to drop 30% from our grade 12 English! I’m thinking, “I had a 76% in Grade 12 English, that means I am going to fail this class! What the hell did I get myself into?”
I am happy to say that I ended up with a 78% in her class and even got a letter from the English department inquiring as to whether I would like to consider changing my major to English. That was also the lowest mark I received in the 19 classes I took in the last two years and I convocated with distinction in the spring of this year (if I hadn’t had a couple of poor marks still dogging me from my younger years I would have had great distinction). To say the least, I am super proud of what I was able to accomplish. It took me a couple of semesters to really get over the feeling of “I am not sure I can do this,” but what a feeling to think that and then prove yourself wrong.
The best part was meeting so many wonderful people along the way, the “leaders of tomorrow” as they say, and the opportunity to spend 4 weeks in South Korea on an international business study trip. This trip gave me the opportunity to meet and make friends with people from countries all over the world and I can honestly say it was the most enriching part of my “mature education.”
This accomplishment is probably the biggest stepping-stone in me starting to check things off my bucket list. I had some serious doubts about whether it was the right thing to do (whether it was or wasn’t, can’t dwell on that now) and whether I could do it. I am happy to say I met the challenge head on and came out victorious.
I can not overstate how much the support of my family and friends meant to me in my quest. I thank everyone who encouraged me along the way and thank all the new friends I made who were welcoming to this old man. To my beautiful wife, I can never thank you enough for your support and encouragement, you are my rock and my inspiration in everything I do.
If you want to know more about my trip to Korea, feel free to read what I blogged while I was there. I have not read it in over a year so I am not sure how good it is and I apologize for the abrupt end to it, I traveled in China for two weeks after my course but could not log onto www.blogger.com from there, so somewhere I have posts typed out that I really should post before I loose them but have never gotten around to it.
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