Blogger: James Ryan Irion

            With today being my birthday I thought I would give a shout out to adult students and share some of my experiences, in hopes of enlightening younger students to the challenges of getting older.  It wasn’t easy being a college freshman back in 2000, just out of high school and more confused than someone who had been spun around a couple dozen times.  But let me tell you it has been even more challenging since my return to Penn State in 2008, after spending five years away from academics working a full-time job.  I can scarcely imagine what it must be like for students older than me.

            Besides the struggling economy making financial and living situations more difficult, being out of the academic loop presents its own challenges too.  Now I’ll admit I’m not the smartest person out there, but it seems like every year academics get more rigorous and complicating.  With Spanish classes that are tough to interpret, Math classes that are very hard to pass, Computer classes that older generations have a hard time understanding, and through it all tuition keeps increasing while ridiculous fees have been added for parking and printing too.  It’s a stretch of the imagination just to keep up with it all!  And yet, adult students seem to pull from their wealth of experience to hang on tight.  While balancing a family, staying on top of living expenses, trying to find or hang on to a job, coping with the fact of being outnumbered by much younger students, or dealing with the notion of having to compete against them is enough to make my head spin.  Such challenges serve as a testament to their level of maturity, their will to succeed, and in my opinion should earn them a great deal of respect for their efforts.

            For me it has been nothing short of the toughest obstacle course and certainly a far cry from the “typical” path one might expect to take after high school.  Yes I did start college right away, yes I had a chunk of financial aid at the time, yes I had better study habits, but I also ended up changing my major less than a year later.  Combined with not knowing what I wanted to do in life I began to feel intense anxiety, like time was passing me by.  I was falling behind those who were the same age as me and felt I lacked a defining purpose.  I didn’t even go to my graduation in 2002 and instead shunned my degree as being useless and insignificant.  For ten months I was unable to secure employment while still living at home and feeling more and more out of place with my peers; know me well and you’ll understand just how difficult those months were for me and why.  But considering that back in elementary school I was not recommended for college prep classes, I also forgot to respect the degree I had achieved as proof that I am smart enough for college after all.  Step by step, goal after goal, I refused to give up and began earning enough money to return to Penn State Altoona full-time.  Now that I have returned I hope to share more of my experiences with others, especially younger students, so that I may inspire them to triumph in the face of adversity.  And as I light the way for others, I continue to be inspired by those adult students who have it so hard in this ever-changing society but still manage to pull through.