Return to school allows new perspective

In an attempt to upgrade my own education and skills, I returned to graduate school two years ago to study gerontology, the study of aging. After completing this course of study during this past summer, I feel that sharing some of my personal experiences and observations might be helpful to others considering the challenge and opportunity of education in the second half of life. For both professional and economic reasons, it was necessary for me to pursue this course of study while continuing other professional activities, which resulted in the feeling that I had "bitten off more than I could chew," during the first few months of my return to college. In addition to the feeling of over-commitment, however, I experienced other difficulties which I had not anticipated.

Not having been tested over or accountable for material read for the last thirty years, I found myself suddenly faced with digesting and then regurgitating large of amounts of material. The first examination convinced me that I was experiencing cognitive decline in advanced stages, and I began to question my decision to enter this competitive arena with those several decades younger. My performance was much better than my initial pessimistic impression, but I began to recognize that certain aspects of memory, especially as related to academic performance, had changed when compared to my experiences in graduate school thirty years ago.

Additionally, I found that my stamina and endurance had also changed some with respect to the educational process. Studying and effectively learning material in the wee hours was often part of my graduate experience when studying to become a psychologist thirty years before. Now, however, I found that my brain simply shut down long before midnight and that I needed to confine my study time to daytime and early evenings.

Now, let me present the strong "upside" of returning to formal education later in life.

• I was much better able to grasp the "big picture" and see things in a much broader perspective due to many years of experience, and hopefully what some would consider a "dash of wisdom." I don't think that I am evading a truthful assessment of the situation when I say that I would much prefer having the experience and broader perspective in lieu of, to some degree, the quickness and stamina of former years. Separating important from unimportant details is much easier now. Perceiving subtleties and shades of gray are skills potentially possessed by those with experience, which usually comes with age. The blind alleys and false starts that confronted me earlier in my life now occur much less frequently. During one point in my recent studies, a metaphor occurred to me. My education at this point is like adding on an addition to a comfortable home rather than starting construction from the ground up. I also found that I enjoy reading and studying much more now than I did in the past with fewer competing alternatives and obligations because of improved ability to prioritize and set boundaries in my life.

Believe it or not, it does make you feel younger again to realize that you can dust off, or perhaps even remove rust, from the majority of your capacities for learning. Use it or lose it seems appropriate for re-application in this instance too.

Copyright c 1997 Harold H. LeCrone, Jr., Ph.D.