Improve Your Finances: Go Back to School
Many adults get nervous when they consider taking college courses in order to improve their ability to get a good job. They haven’t been in school for awhile, perhaps they had some bad experiences in school, and they are not at all confident about their ability to learn college material.
Yet if you have been working a job or two at a steady rate and you are over twenty-five, you have some skills and abilities you did not have at the age of fifteen. These skills will help you to be successful in college classes.
Our brains mature much more slowly than we think and this has an effect on our ability to learn. One reason high school students may struggle with mathematics is that math is a subject that requires abstract reasoning. While we begin to develop this skill with the maturation of the brain during the first part of adolescence, it is only during the mid-twenties that the brain is fully mature and more capable of handling the abstractions of math. If you struggled with math in high school, don’t decide that you are incapable of doing college math; chances are you will do much better now than you did then.
People who have had a job, no matter what kind of job it is, have a critical set of skills that many eighteen year olds do not possess. In order to have a job, you have to have a certain amount of self-discipline. Typically you don’t party all night and then expect to handle your job well the next day.
Jobs and household management also require you to be able to handle figuring out what to do with your money, planning ahead, scheduling tasks that need to get done, and thinking long term. All of these skills will contribute to your ability to succeed in college. Adulthood also requires common sense, which is something that will help you with learning.
Finally, when you choose to go to college (and you are paying for it yourself) you will be more motivated to get the work done and to succeed. Motivation is a strong foundation for success in college classes.
College is not just for eighteen year olds anymore. Most colleges are experiencing a rise in the number of “adult” students; the wise colleges are seeing the value of teaching people who are motivated and who have the self-discipline to get things done. While there are challenges of managing a life, a job, and going to school on top of that, don’t let the idea that you are not intellectually capable of learning stop you. Adulthood has given you more than you really know.
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