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HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE A MATURE STUDENT?

How does it feel to be going to school again, to be att nding
day classes at college with kids much younger than yourself @ fet 's
fac&®, it, some of them one younger than your own kids € ow does

it feel to be doing homework, studying for exams, worrying over
grades? How does it feel to be a mature student? It feels great!

But it can also be dreadful. If-you are a wife and mother who
has no particularly pressing financial need to go back to work or to
pursue a career, you face a lot of self-doubt about your goals,
your abilities and your responsibilities to others. as well as yourself.
And it makes it a little tougher if the career you've chosen doesn't
quite fit into a cagfegory usually reserved for your av«rage, run-of-
the-mill housewife. If you are going to return to a job in nursing
or teaching, or want to fo back to work in an office, that: quite
acceptable. If you are afraid of being met with some skepticism,
however, you decline to tell inquiring friends that you want. to derome
a jazz pianist, a musical director qméa composer and arranger. You

simply leave the impression that all these studies are for general
self-improverient. .

And if you find yourself in a music course that requires you
to learn to play three woodwind instruments in one semester, a variety
of percussion instruments in another, with three brass instruments
yet to come in another, you feel not only . +> 612ly, but 2
~~ + panicestricken. (I never knew that woodwind instruments come
in section*’that are supposed to fit together.) If you've never before
blown into anything more sophisticated than a whistle, vou can under-
stand the anxiety when. ~ you are about to blow your first note
on the oboe, sitting in a class of thirty kids, most of whom have
played in hish school concert bands for years. It helps to have a
sense of humour; and you need a lot of determination as well. But
eventually, little by little, the successes begin to pile up, you
start to feel that you're making a break-through; and it feels good
to know that vou can make it, after all.

One thing about being a ‘mature!’ student that doesn't quite
add up, is this being tagged 'mature'. According to the Dourlas
Collere caleniar, that's anyone nineteen years or older wrolhas © - =
been out of school for atleast a year. That's probably half the student
population, tut in the practical application of the term, I get the
feeling they are refefréng_to. those of us who are at least over
twenty-five, and more particularly; those of us who can now take “over”
for Jack Benny. It's a polite way of differentiating between older
and younrer students, but it ignores the possibility that many of

the younger students are also mature. The point I want to make is

this: why does there ned to be any differentiation or classification.4 #|
We are all students, aren't we? I, for one, don't want any Special |
privileges or favours on the basis of my age.