6LikesOriginally Posted by Stargazer;3444863;
Just an update on school for me. I finally finished all my classes.Now I just have to wait for the grades to roll in.
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Just an update on school for me. I finally finished all my classes.
I've been so swamped this year so far this is the first time I've peeked in to the General Discussion area for ages, so just saw this thread. Just wanted to add to the encouragement of the "non-traditional" students (I agree, we need a better phrase!). I teach college classses. The returners are always my better students--they come to class, they participate (and it's clear they actually did the reading for that week), they turn things in on time unless they have a REAL excuse, they are a logistical delight... AND they have interesting things to contribute to the class--plus their grammar is usually waaaaay better than that of the traditional students, so I can pay attention to the content instead of writing notes on agreement of subject and verb in number and the difference between "number" and "amount", "less" and "fewer", their, there, and they're, to, two, and too, then and than, etc. Anyone who's still thinking about doing it, just DO it, as the Nike folks say. Your profs. will love you 99% of the time.
Thank you for your post. I've heard other college profs say the same thing, that they love the NT students (we do need a new phrase) because they are just better students all around. I know I was a typical college kid at 18-20 the first time around. This time I'm paying for it and I'm taking it more seriously and I'm loving it. I'm bummed because I couldn't take summer courses, not any of the traditional students are bummed, they are glad to have the summer break. Not me, I want it over with plus there was a class this summer I REALLY wanted to take.
I am such nerd. I finally get out of school, can read for pleasure and the first book I read is about 8 US Presidents. Everyone is teasing me about it. But I did delve into some trashy murder mystery this week.
It's hard to make a generalisation, but in my case it was actually the other way around. During my last two years, we were only 12 students, about half "traditional" and half "non-traditional". Us traditionals always used to stay after class and help each other out with the assignment, or come in on days without lectures to go over something. One of the professors remarked that it was great to see us study together and help each other out and he also said that you could see it once the marks came.
The non-traditionals had had jobs before and grown accustomed to a higher income, something the student loans would not cover, therefore many of them had jobs on the side, taking up more or their free time. They did do their assignments, but not in the same way we did and, as the professor said, it was noticabe once the marks came.
I'm not saying that one is better than the other, but this was my experience; the traditionals were more active, we participated more and we put down more work. I guess it all comes down to motiavation, some find it immediately, some find it after a few years; people are different.
Femme, You're in a different country as well. In the US school system and particularly at the University I'm attending, my fellow classmates that are traditional didn't study worth a damn and I got ridiculed by one for having an unfair age advantage as I had lived through all this stuff. Well I was alive when some of it happened, but I was a toddler, not really watching the news at that point.
What we're also experiencing at my school (5000 students, 25% of which are non-traditional) is that the economy and job layoffs have forced older people back into school to retrain or get more training to be better marketable in this economy. Most of the NT's I've met don't have other jobs or are married and the spouse works or they have part time jobs and even with families and some job situations, they are still coming out better than the traditional students. In all my classes, there were a lot of traditional students that blew off homework. That's how I managed to pull a B in German. My test scores averaged 73-a C, but I got 15 extra points for doing all the homework and other assignments and for always being in class and it boosted my grade to a B. In that class the teacher passed the grades around (we were assigned a number for privacy) and I could see how many others had done ALL the work and out of 20 or so students there were about 5 of us that did EVERYTHING and quite a few who never handed in anything outside of the tests. Makes a huge difference in grades as I saw.
I also work part time and still managed to make very good grades, turn in all my assignments, participate in class discussions, have my book read before class, etc.
It depends on a lot of factors, but in the US, I've heard a lot of college profs from different schools tell me they prefer the NT's as the maturity level makes a big difference.
On a different note, I got a birthday post card from my university yesterday. Color me impressed, but then again, with budget issues, can they really afford to send out 5000 of those a year? Or are we NT's the only one's getting them?
Every semester I say that I want to go back to college. I have kids in college and they are also encouraging. I just don't see how I can afford it. I can get financial help for the kids, but I still put in a pretty penny, but I can't use them on my fafsa for financial aid. I thought I could and that would have helped with grants and stuff, but ...
So ... I continue to waffle ... and put a little bit away every month.
I was just sharing my experience of college, which was different than yours. I still don't like generalisations, because they can be subjective. I mean there still are many students who start college right after high school who graduate as planned.
As for the different school systems in our countries, from what I can read out of your post (as I'm not at all into US school politics) it basically means that high schools have not prepared the students well enough to go to college. We see the same tendencies here, recently when college system was audited and more time was added it added on lessons in the beginning of the education to make up for what the students should have learnt in high school.
But it still is a maturity and motivational issue, some find it at 18, some must wait until they're 40. Maybe many of the traditional students were pressured into attending college and needed some time off, maybe a year could have made all the difference. If your motivation is not there, there's not much to be done.
Ladytex, I'm getting enough to cover my books and tuition with some leftover. I would at least go talk to the college. My school also has help for what they call "non-traditional" students (us older students). I know quite a few people my age and older going back. And in 2 years, I'll be much more marketable in the job force.
Femme, they don't prepare the students here for college in Highschool. Well that is a generalization, but the education system here is not like it used to be and lots of kids end up in college not well prepared. I always thought that the British (and other counties) idea of a "gap year" between high school and college was a good idea.
I agree that non traditional students tend to be more motivated. I saw that when I was doing my BSN and older RN's joined the class in third year. However, it was really a good partnership for all of us since they could help us with the practical skills, and I found that being out of school for so long, their overall study habits were sometimes inefficient. It's a generalization, but I found the older students just really freaked out over the Stats course we had to take as a graduation requirement. They were perfectly capable of doing it, but the level of panic over Math was pretty well universal amongst them. So, I helped them, and they really helped me in our clinical placements. I think both groups bring a lot to the table.
Currently, having two daughters in University (in Canada), I can tell you that to gain entrance they needed to come in with a 90 percent average, and yes they party on weekends for sure, but they work pretty darn hard to maintain a good average. Back in the stone ages when I started University, the competition was less fierce. I think there is a lot of pressure on today's kids and most of them work pretty darn hard.
Success in college absolutely depends on the individual, in my opinion. I've seen both traditional and non-traditional alike struggling because of their lack of planning and motivation. As a traditional student, my husband completed a degree in computer science at Stanford in four years flat. Meanwhile, I could barely bring myself to get to class as a traditional student. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, so I floundered. As a non-traditional student, I think that there might be a marginal difference in overall attitude because most are paying for at least a portion of college themselves. If mom and dad aren't footing the bill, it becomes a huge motivator not to waste your own money. However, I've seen more than one non-traditional student complain about the work load or panic because they don't remember how to study. As a non-traditional myself, I've stayed on the Deans List and I'm waiting for my grades that I think will put me there again. With four children, I have about a hundred times more things to worry about now than I did as a traditional student, but the motivation is there, so I'm succeeding. If the motivation isn't there, the student will fail, whether they be traditional or non-traditional. In fact, in one of my psychology classes, we learned that grades in high school, quality of high school, age, I.Q., financial level, and most other things don't consistently equate to success in college. The only thing that equates consistently with success in college is level of motivation. If someone is ready for it, then they do it.
The only other thing I had to add is that I never study with my classmates, though many of them would study together. Mostly because I find that I can study more effectively by myself. In a group, I always feel as if I'm handing out answers instead of studying for my own benefit.
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