Going back to school at 55

by Ron
(Weatherford, Texas)

Question

I'm 55 and interested in going back to college. Actually, I did go to college a year ago and dropped out after 10 weeks because I was afraid I was going to fail. Later I found out I was not failing and probably would have done fine if I had just hung in there. But it was difficult. I seemed to have a hard time catching on as quickly as the younger students.
So I'm now considering going back to take another swing at it. Any comments or suggestions?

Noel's Answer

I think it is a wonderful idea. I went back to university in my mid 40s to do a Master of Agriculture degree, and found it very rewarding.

I remember reading a study in an Education Psychology grad course I took, that as we get older our ability to quickly solve problems diminishes, but our ability to ask good questions improves. I like that, as I see the ability to ask good questions as wisdom!

So... you may not be able to learn as quickly as you did when you were younger, but you should be able to better discern what is important to learn, so not waste time learning stuff that doesn't matter :-)

Noel