Back to School again, yay?!

Becoming a student again at 30 has been an interesting and enlightening experience. After almost a decade as a business manager for a large tech firm, most of my time was spent as a ‘SME’ or subject-matter expert for my slice of the business. This meant that people were coming to me with questions and seeking my knowledge and advice. But as a student, I am now in the complete opposite role, which required quite the mental shift.

I knew that I was going to have to spend some time getting back into the rhythm of being a student again. I would characterize being a student as being repeatedly inundated with information while also being expected to immediately digest and regurgitate it at will. A lovely sight, no? A lot of this transition would hinge on me being mentally prepared to dedicate the time and energy needed to learn a new subject. And learning was going to be a relatively rusty exercise for me as I did not do much of it at my old job. But it wasn’t like my professional experience was going to be completely useless. A lot of the soft skills I had developed were still relevant for being a successful student.

In fact, I would say that I am a much better student now than I was in undergraduate. There are a couple of key reasons for this.
1) I am consciously making the decision to become a student again
2) I personally chose a subject to study that I am passionate about
3) I am better equipped to gauge what is needed for success in each class, regarding time management, planning, effort, etc.
4) I am more disciplined now than I was at 18

The mindful choice to go back to school for a subject that I am excited for is the main driver for my current academic success. With passion comes dedication, and this is what made it easy to dedicate the many hours and weekends to reading textbooks, documentation, and dinking around on personal projects. I think the life experiences I gained over the past decade after undergraduate have shown me what it takes to make a goal a success and has equipped me with the discipline needed to accomplish it. In reflection, I think that if I could re-do undergrad, I would probably tell my younger self to spend a year or two after high school to experience the world and to find my own passions and goals before starting college. It really has been that impactful to my ability to learn for success.

This was made readily apparent during my first quarter as a comp-sci post-baccalaureate at Oregon State University. I took Discrete Mathematics for CompSci. As a non-math major and someone who had been out of school for almost a decade. having to relearn logarithms and exponent / square root manipulations, while also learning how to write mathematic proofs for the first time ever, was hard. Really hard. Really, really hard. And it took a lot of time. It took forever to read the textbook, another eternity to digest the material, and even longer to start understanding how to use this new knowledge. But I loved every minute of it. Learning about truth tables in Discrete Mathematics, and how they influenced computer design was eye opening. Being able to relate this tough abstract subjects back to my love for computer science was my key to success. And if it weren’t for how much I loved this subject, I’m sure I would have easily failed early on.

So, for those who are thinking about rejoining academics, my advice would be to make sure you are basing your decision on one that centers around something you are passionate about. Your passion will fuel an intrinsic sense of dedication and discipline, both of which will be needed and tested for success.