I Was a 32 Year-Old Undergraduate

The second in my "Adventures in Academia" series

Today’s post is the second in a series about my experiences in higher education as a first generation college and high-school graduate and late bloomer, called “Adventures in Academia.” You can read the first installment here.

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I didn’t grow up thinking I’d go to college.

Neither of my parents graduated from high-school. When I was little my mom and I moved a lot, and I always had trouble keeping up with new curriculum. At one school, a teacher decided I would never learn math properly and suggested I read during the math portions of class, which is why I don’t know how to do basic math— I can’t even subtract large numbers and never learned my times tables. I’m pretty sure that my love for reading, writing, and languages is why I became a writer, although I enjoyed a lot of other subjects these were the ones I was naturally good at. Unlike the sciences, music, and art, they also required very few supplies, thanks to school libraries.

An adult autism diagnosis (with a PDA (pathological demand avoidance) profile) helped me understand that my lack of success in elementary, middle, and high-school wasn’t only due to constant switching of schools and parental neglect, but also happened because I was fundamentally misunderstood by most of my teachers and other authority figures.

In seventh grade I was expelled from school for “insubordination” because of near-constant power struggles with teachers, especially male teachers. After a year at an alternative school I began high-school. By then I was already using hard drugs. When my mom, stepfather, and I moved in the middle of my sophomore year it took less than three months for me to finally drop out of school altogether.

The only reason I graduated high-school was because an alternative school opened in my town (Olympia, WA), right after I’d returned home after months of hitch-hiking the western United States. I was seventeen, and I’d been homeless on and off since I was twelve.

The school was tiny (my graduating class had around twenty people). For the first time I felt intellectually supported and challenged. Over time, this counteracted my high drive for self-destruction. I gave up alcohol and stopped smoking weed and using other drugs.

During my senior year I took classes at the local community college and began dreaming of “real college.” I sent out for pamphlets and packets from a bunch of universities but soon learned that I wasn’t a good candidate for those schools. I’d already dropped out of “real” high-school, and there was no way my mom and her new husband would pay the high tuition if I got in. Besides, I’d surely fail the SAT.

After my high-school graduation I decided to continue classes at a community college in Eugene, Oregon. I moved in with my best friend from summer camp, who’d been accepted with a scholarship to the University of Oregon.

It didn’t take long for things to fall apart. School was overwhelming, and I needed to work 20 hours a week to pay my rent. Alcohol was everywhere, so I started drinking again. Then I started using drugs again. Then my grandmother died. In the middle of my second semester I dropped out. Soon after that, I became a wildland firefighter. For the entirety of my twenties I dreamed of going to a four-year college, of becoming a “real” writer.

Notice all the things I believed back then: that community college wasn’t “real” college, and that writing wasn’t “real” until I had a college education. These beliefs were cultural, but by telling myself these things I also excused myself from really trying be a writer. If I didn’t try, I couldn’t fail.

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In my imagination college was a sacred space for knowledge, where privileged people went to learn and grow.

I applied to “real” college when I was 31, two years after my mom’s suicide, choosing five dream schools. Several friends and mentors helped me with my essay. For a moment it seemed like my true dream school, Bard College, was going to accept me, but they didn’t. Then I got an email from Syracuse University. There, attached on official letterhead, was my acceptance letter. Syracuse offered me several scholarships; some of them based on my low-income bracket, one based on my essay, and another because I was a “non-traditional” student.

I’d chosen Syracuse because so many of the writers I loved had graduated both from the MFA (creative writing) program and as undergraduates.

It was May 2012 when I got that letter, and I was actually at the beginning of a poorly planned backpacking trip on the Pacific Crest Trail, made famous by Cheryl Strayed in her book, WILD. The trip was going terribly; I hadn’t slept for several days because of extended nightly panic attacks. After several days of sobbing, I quit, using the last $400 in my bank account to fund my cross-country drive.

When I arrived in Syracuse I took a minimum wage job as a hotel housekeeper. It was the last minimum wage job I’d ever hold, but during my first year of school I was so broke that I didn’t have a proper coat or boots during my first Central New York winter.

During my first year I experienced a profound culture shock: Central New York was different than the Hudson Valley, where I’d worked as a live-in nanny in my early twenties. But this was only the surface shock. During the application process I’d never taken the time to really think about what it would feel like to be older, to be broke. I also didn’t consider the workload of classes and work-study. But I had fought forest fires for seven years. If I could do that, then I could definitely do this.

I was so, so grateful to be there. A real student at a real college. I was also ten years older than all of my classmates. My peers sometimes mistook me for their professor, and I often got mixed, sometimes disdainful, reactions when I had to clarify that I was an undergraduate and not a graduate student.

Not only was I older than everyone; I was also surrounded by wealth. Or, rather, I noticed wealth and likely overlooked students like me, who were struggling financially. It was such a crazy imbalance and threw me into a whole identity crisis. Ten years older, but broke? I struggled with intense self-consciousness and mostly kept to myself.

I have a lot of memories from this year, but this one has remained especially clear: I was sitting at the student union center, where I often went to work. My cheap laptop had died, so I’d borrowed one from the library. The bottoms of my pants were wet from melted snow— I wore these brightly colored jeans that were always on sale at Target— and my shoes were wet. I had a fleece jacket which I topped with a taped-up puffy jacket to protect myself from the biting cold. A kid sat near me, his expensive down jacket occupying an empty chair. Everything about him was pristine: new Timberlands, name brand everything. On his lap rested MacBook Pro, brand new. He was scrolling on his iPhone, and an iPad rested atop his jacket. In that moment it was almost as if there were a wall separating us, and I could taste my envy in my throat.

During that first year, as I adjusted to the workload, I had no life. Most of my time was spent in various places, working. I woke up at 5am every day and arrived at the coffee shop right when it opened at 6am. On weekday afternoons I worked as a literacy tutor at an underserved elementary school. Those kids were the best part of my days, and I related to them more than any of my peers.

A roommate once said to me: “I don’t remember having to work so hard when I was in college.” It was an offhand observation. Embarrassed, I mumbled something in response, but later wished I had said something cutting, like “Maybe I’m just not as smart as you.” In retrospect, it was a combination of so many things: my work ethic, which I’d learned as a firefighter; my still undiagnosed ADHD and autism, my lack of awareness regarding helpful services, like office hours and tutoring, and my determination to keep a 4.0 GPA.

I think what was most surprising to me about college was how much my peers took for granted. I mean, I get it, and got it then. I’d dropped out of school long ago. But at a place like Syracuse, which cost upwards of $50k a year back then, I was astounded at their nonchalance and disengagement. But I also understood it as result of the idea that one has to go to college right after high-school.

Over time, I began to feel lucky that I had dropped out when I was younger rather than forcing myself to get a degree in something I didn’t care about. Like everything, my gratitude intermingled with bitterness and awe and sadness.

My senior year was a mixed-bag of joys and losses and joys again.

Everything I learned in my undergrad regarding the culture of academia, I learned by trial and error. I wish I’d had some sort of crash course called “how to get things in college.” I wish I’d gone to office hours more often, and leaned on more resources (or known about them). When you’re raised to be completely self-sufficient it’s not second nature to ask for help or assistance.

I was lucky that Syracuse valued me as a non-traditional student. This is partially because I won a bunch of awards after my first year, due to the high GPA, but also just because they did (and still do) value what non-traditional students bring to the table.

My peers, too, were lovely. If I’d been able to sooner get past my own self-consciousness about my age I’d likely have developed deeper friendships, but many of them saw something in me that I didn’t yet see in myself. This, although they were ten years younger. Being an older student taught me never to assume anything about anyone, based on any identifiers. I was surprised by the generosity of so many peers, and by their instinct to include me.

During the last year of my undergrad I was named a Remembrance Scholar, one of the university’s highest honors. Remembrance and Lockerbie Scholars are a legacy of honoring those lost in Pan Am Flight 103, and I represented Karen Lee Hunt, an English major who loved poetry and dreamed of being a journalist. It was such an honor to represent her, and to be a part of that cohort of Remembrance Scholars.

I was also pregnant, and had an abortion that November. The juxtaposition of such a high honor and the pregnancy itself, which was a huge surprise, renders my memories almost transparent; far away. Maybe because I felt ashamed then, that I couldn’t be someone who wanted a child, or someone who didn’t get pregnant in the first place, especially because I was in my erly thirties; an age when many people choose to have kids. Maybe because I was continuing to work too many hours a week, beyond the point of financial necessity, because I knew no different.

That autumn of my senior year I was also harassed by my Hindi professor; an event that unmoored me not only because of the harassment but also because of the response of several woman who didn’t believe me, or other students who came forward. I ended up giving up my Hindi studies as well as a summer fellowship in India.

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The joy was in graduating. Something I’d worked so hard for.

I graduated summa cum laude, with honors, and was nominated for a Capstone prize for my novel, The Open Curtain (never to be published?). Not only did I win the prize in my category, but I won the overall Capstone award.

My graduation day was so surreal and so wonderful. I felt such an intense duality— neither of my parents were alive. I wore my mom’s pearl necklace and wished she could have been there. But from the stage I could see several of my friends applauding, holding up handmade signs.

It may have been one of the first times I actually felt fully seen and supported.

The moment my overall Capstone award was announced.

In writing this second piece about academia, I want to acknowledge the potential for transformation that exists within the academy. I began my time at Syracuse thinking I wasn’t smart or capable of engaging intellectually. Believing that I was deficient. To my utter surprise, I realized that college was just like anywhere else; filled with people of differing levels of capability. Through my own upbringing I was taught that people with college degrees were inherently smarter than me, and my own journey as an undergrad taught me how untrue that was. A lot of my fantasies about “real college” were destroyed, but through that destruction I learned to value everything I had learned thus far. Not book learning, but life learning.

As someone who is now in a PhD program and has ambivalent feelings about academia in general, I remain grateful for my undergraduate experience. It taught me so much. More than anything it taught me both confidence and humility.

Tell me, what has your educational experience been? Whether you’ve been to college, graduated high-school, have a PhD or are a first-generation college student, what are you grateful for and what would you do differently?