Taking a second look at college

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Taking a second look at college - The Daily - at the University of Washington

October 27, 1999
1,115 words
The Daily (the University of Washington)

Taking a second look at college

Dori Stubbs
The Daily

UW student Jack Anderson takes copious notes, reviews them before every lecture and actively engages in classroom discussions. But when paper due dates or test times roll around, he takes off.

He can do that because at age 63, he's taking college courses not for credit, but to add balance to his life.

Helene Fowler, on the other hand, at age 57, doesn't have the luxury of skipping essays or midterms. A communications major, she applies herself diligently to finishing her first bachelor's degree.

Most undergraduate classes at the University fill with the usual 18- to 22-year-old student crowd. But in many courses, a few laugh-lined faces and gray-templed heads dot the classrooms.

Some non-traditional UW students sign up for undergraduate courses for the intellectual stimulation, to meet requirements for a master's program or because a college degree has been a lifelong dream.

Anderson, a bespectacled, articulate, openly gay man whose blond hair only just shows signs of turning gray, said that when most of his friends died from AIDS, he coped by turning into a workaholic.

A recent serious illness of his own slowed him down.

He took time off to travel and recuperate, and said he's now in excellent health. He works out at an athletic club, has some close friends, and strives to maintain emotional, spiritual, intellectual and physical balance in his life.

"What was missing was the intellectual stimulation," he said.

To tip the scale to the middle, he listens intently to Sabrina Ramet's lectures about Eastern European government.

"This is a marvelous time in life to open up to new information and new experiences, to fill in the blanks that I missed in undergraduate and graduate school," said Anderson, a retired Seattle psychotherapist.

When Ramet invited him to stay for Wednesday's test, he laughed out loud.

"I've taken all the tests I want to take," he noted. "I'm getting what I need - learning."

Anderson's classmate Florence Gross agreed.

At age 80, Gross said this is a time of complete freedom for her.

With her freckles, auburn hair and chocolate eyes complemented by coral lipstick, this great-grandmother of two charms her fellow students and teachers. Full of energy, she bounds up stairs like a 20-year-old on her way to cheerleading practice.

School helps keep her young, she said.

"All my life I've been taking classes to get a degree and earn a living," said Gross, a retired Seattle social worker. "Now I'm able to choose the classes I want to learn about and am eager to learn about."

Gross, who lives with her husband in a retirement community, doesn't understand why her acquaintances play bridge rather than take classes. She compares learning to heaven.

"People say, what's life after death?" she said. "I tell people, when I die, I want to go to a place where there are rows and rows of classrooms. I'll go from one to the next till I learn everything possible to learn in this world."

The University provides an Access program that permits seniors 60 or older to audit non-lab classes for $5 per course (plus a prorated tech fee) on a space-available basis.

Students such as Gross and Anderson add dimension to classrooms, said Ramet, a professor of international studies.

"With retired students, they're in a position to bring a lot of life experiences to class discussions," Ramet said. "This is good and helpful. I'm always delighted to have 'Access' students."

She also said that students returning to the University to work on degrees after being away from studies for awhile approach courses with enthusiasm.

Helene Fowler certainly fits that description.

The silver-haired mother of four happily lugs around her heavy backpack from class-to-class.

She started piling textbooks into her bag in 1960, and after a start-and-stop UW career, she'll graduate with a bachelor's in new media in March.

"I'll graduate 40 years after I started," she said. "I always felt it was unfinished business. Getting a college a degree was just a given. I always figured I'd have my chance to finish."

With the support of her husband of 29 years and her 17-year-old son who still lives at home, she's making her dreams come true by taking communications courses and serving internships.

"It's really hard to convey the joy that I have," she related. "I get emotional. I feel so thrilled. I feel so privileged. I'm taking a course in journalism literature. When buying the books, I thought, oh, my God, they're giving me credits for this!"

One of her more memorable UW moments, she recalled, was when she tried to register for a motherhood course through women's studies. Starman advised her that she didn't have the needed prerequisites. She thought to herself: "What? Thirty-four years of parenting isn't enough?"

Fowler said she often overhears younger students discussing dating and homecoming and she noted that doing without these distractions enables her to focus and better enjoy college life.

Adam Simon, a political science professor, noted that non-traditional students studying for degrees, such as Fowler, often participate a great deal in class and receive high grades.

"In general, I think they treat school more like work," he said, "so they're more prone to participate and do the readings."

Mimi McGrath, a returning 29-year-old student, explained why. Academics are her entire focus this time around, she said.

In her jeweled choker, flared jeans and rib-knit sweater, and her short, blond curls secured with a tiger-eye bobby pin, she resembles a more youthful student.

But she's not, she pointed out quickly.

McGrath takes undergraduate courses to fulfill requirements for a master's in public affairs and international studies.

When she worked on her education and African studies degrees, university social life repeatedly distracted her from her studies, she said.

Her college outlook has changed. She previously taught high school and recently returned from working in Bosnian refugee camps for two years with the Peace Corps.

"My whole approach is different," she said. "I don't know if it's being older and having worked or being a teacher who hounded students. But I'm able to apply study habits that as an undergrad, I couldn't do very well."

She doesn't miss the social aspect she said, because she's accomplishing her professional goals and making friends of all ages.

Anderson, Gross, Fowler and McGrath each agreed that younger students are receptive to the life experiences non-traditional students add to the University environment.

They say professors seem particularly pleased with their performances.

Perhaps Anderson said it best for the four when he described this period of life as: "more satisfying, less stress, less questioning and angst. It's like a quiet adventure."

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