Any other adult, non traditional students?

Student Lounge College Life
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<p>Hello all,</p>

<p>This is my first post here, and I just wanted to check in to see if there are any non traditional students browsing this forum.</p>

<p>Little about myself: I am a 25 year old veteran of the US Coast Guard that is currently working a laborer job. I don't want to toil in this field, so I decided to use my GI bill to finally go to college. I start Depaul U this fall, going for an environmental science major</p>

<p>To those who started college a little older then most: did you ever feel out of place? That's probably a big concern of mine.</p>

<p>Anyways, I'd love to hear from your experiences!</p>

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<p>I can’t comment on the age gap, but I have a bunch of friends who go to DePaul, and they love it.</p>

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<p>It might have a lot to do with the fact that I’m at a CC right now, but I don’t feel out of place (26 year old sophomore, at least based on credits). We have a lot of non-traditional students, people coming back for a second degree/vocational training, even retirees taking classes for fun.</p>

<p>I imagine that at a four-year college you’d see less of this, but there will be other students your age or who have similar experiences. You may feel a little odd for a few weeks, but I’ll bet the feeling passes quickly.</p>

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<p>I’m older than most of my peers now…due to medical reasons I had to take a year off after high school, and then 3 years off after my third semester. So I’ll be a 25 year old senior. Not really a huge deal; people don’t care.
Yeah I know it’s slightly different starting at 25, but you’ll be fine. You served our country and most people will respect that.<br>
/salute</p>

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<p>I’m not going to lie, It’s weird to read situations like this when you have 21 year old+ people in college, but that’s because we’re immersed in a culture where you jump into college right after high school. But like marcdvl said, I don’t think anyone would actually care. Like if you went to my school, I would allow for the chance for us to be friends. I wouldn’t be like “ewww…your 25…get away.” Everyone has a reason for not going to college right off the back and I don’t think anyone should or will hold that against you.</p>

<p>You’ll be fine dude. :)</p>

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<p>Thanks for the responses guys. Is interesting to hear stuff about the subject. My school has a veterans union, so I’ll look to be joining (as there will be similar stories to mine)</p>

<p>This may sound stupid, but college is going to be intimidating to me, despite my military background! But I’m also excited to meet the challenge</p>

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<p>23 years young about to finish my 6 years in the USAF. Takings courses online right now. Will move to a 4 year college off the G.I bill or possibly ANG tuition assistance.</p>

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<p>Welcome CGVet!</p>

<p>I am also an adult student though I am 33. </p>

<p>I jumped straight into the Army from HS and then jumped to nursing from the Army. Now I’m one semester deep into my BS in Computer Engineering.</p>

<p>I definitely feel out of place most of the time due to the age difference. I’ve minimized it though by networking with students that are also vets. At 25 I don’t think you’ll have many issues.</p>

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<p>I’m 29, went to college for a couple years right out of high school, but then my parents made too much money and I lost funding and dropped. Just made it back this summer. I’m still in a community college and here most students seem to be nontraditional college age. I’m sure that will change somewhat once I move on to a regular university. I’ve heard there’s quite a few nontraditional’s at the moment.</p>

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<p>I’m 23, and a mom of 2 boys aged 3 and 4. I’ve never had a problem. Not the only older non traditional student in my major. (Funeral Service…we are pretty tight knit!) I’ve had to turn down offers to hang out because I have to get home pretty much straight away but still made friends. I know for me the commute (1hr 1/2 one way) was one of the biggest pains and just finding time to do homework! It was all fine though!</p>

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<p>My friend’s mother attended college at the age of 31. Academically, although she had her high school diploma, she attended GED courses so that she would not be too far behind in her classes. It was also cheaper than remedial classes at college.</p>

<p>Socially, as a mother, she could not (and frankly did not want to) attend parties and many school events like the typical college student. There were not very many people on campus that were her age, but she found friends easily through other mediums like study groups and eating lunch in the restaurants on campus after class every once in a while. There were so many different people on campus, that although she was a 31-year-old freshman, she was not stuck with immature 18-year-olds stuck in the high school mentality. No one avoided her because of her age because it’s college, not high school. According to my friend’s mom, unless someone was looking for a date, age didn’t matter because everyone was an adult.</p>

<p>You’ll be fine. Just put yourself out there socially and study hard. :)</p>

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<p>She also joined a few clubs that weren’t too time-consuming. You could look into that, as well.</p>

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<p>Oh yeah, I’ll be looking to join the vetetans union on campus.</p>

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<p>First – thanks for your service.</p>

<p>As for fitting in, I don’t think that you will have all that much of a problem. I am a nontraditional student also – I went to college right after high school, went for 2 years, and then left for personal reasons. 25 years later I found myself working at a major university, and decided to take advantage of the situation. I restarted college at age 45, and found it fairly easy to fit in. </p>

<p>Most of the students are fairly accepting of the older student in a class, and seem to appreciate my input on topics. There have been a few occasions where it got a bit weird – like having a former coworker as an instructor (she left a company I was working for a few years back in order to go back to school). The only other weirdness is being asked if I was the instructor for a course (that happened more than a few times).</p>

<p>At 25, you are not that much older than most students. You will be a few years older than the seniors, and about the same age as many of the grad students. You should fit right in.</p>

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<p>As a 21 year old transferring to a new school, I’m going to coming in as a sophomore instead of a senior since a lot of my credits couldn’t transfer. I’m also going to a school that requires one to be out of high school for at least a year or is 19 yrs old. In that sense I’m a non traditional student. I’m kind of glad for it too because I don’t want to be in classes with freshmen.</p>

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<p>I am going to be a non traditional student as well starting next month. I am 24 and going for a part-time llb and communication studies double major while doing a full time job. Dont worry, there are alot of non-traditionals out there.</p>

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<p>There are two types of people that will notice that you are a non-traditional student.</p>

<p>1) 18 year old college freshmen in their first week of class. They actually don’t really care that you are older, it’s just unusual for them. The novelty of it rapidly wears off for them after about a week or two.</p>

<p>2) You are the only other person that will care. You obviously will feel like you are sticking out like a sore thumb going into your very first class…
…That should rapidly go away by the end of your first class.</p>

<p>It’s also nearly impossible to go through college in this day and age and not experience a class with students of all ages. That’s one of the nice things about college, it’s a melting pot of diverse people of all ages and backgrounds.</p>

<p>Nobody really cares what age you are in school. A college campus is full of a variety of different people of all ages. Freshmen to other undergrads, to grad students of all ages, to staff and faculty of all ages. </p>

<p>Take this from somebody that experienced the typical freshmen scenario when I was 18, but also completed their degree as a non-traditional 34 year old.</p>

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<p>29/ US Army veteran… I don’t feel out-of-place; it seems quite a few of the people at my college are non traditional. I dont think people earn enough in my state to send kids to college right after high school.</p>

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<p>I’m 29, I entered community college at age 27 and am now at my state’s flagship school, my major is engineering physics. At CC I never felt out of place due to my age, the average age of a student was 27, and even though most of my classes were filled with people who, like me, were going to transfer to the college of engineering at OSU, I never felt like the oldest student. There were people in their thirties with teenaged kids in my classes.</p>

<p>Since switching to OSU things have changed a bit, I’ve noticed the average age of a student at OSU is more traditional, and thus far I’ve had two grad student teachers who were younger than me. I didn’t really sweat it though. I’m 29 but I don’t <em>feel</em> 29, I actually feel like a little kid around a bunch of grown-ups, but that’s because I haven’t lived life (never had a date or anything, but that’s another thread). Also, I’ve been mistaken for ages ranging from 19 to 31, although one guy I told this to said “you’d be pretty ripped for a 19-year-old.”</p>

<p>So on campus I have never felt out of place due to age, even at OSU there are decidedly middle-aged, working students with kids in a few of my classes, sitting amongst the just-out-of-high-school people and the frat and sorority types.</p>

<p>But as for off-campus…</p>

<p>I joined a campus Bible study group about five months ago, it was mainly early-20s people. I asked multiple times, including before I ever attended the first meeting, if I was too old for the group and was assured I was not. Everybody seemed very nice to my face, but I noticed that I was never getting the memos when the meetup location switched, I wasn’t being added to the facebook mailing lists on updates, people at church weren’t coming up and saying high to me, nobody (out of a group that ranges from 15-30 people) offered to help me move when I asked for help or even replied to my requests with a “sorry, can’t help.” As I said, everybody was very nice to my face. Then, the day before I turned 29, <em>after</em> the meeting, I was taken aside by somebody who was nominated by the others to ask me to switch to a different group that was more late 20s, as some people in the group thought I was too old and apparently I was even making people uncomfortable.</p>

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<p>my sister is 25 and still an undergrad (7 years and counting…) and she’s never mentioned it being an issue. At 25, people are just going to assume that you’re a grad student unless they’re in a low-level class with you. Even then, you’re not going to stick out at all.</p>

<p>@tom- o.O … great Christians there. Oy vey.</p>