Guest Author - Marilyn Crain
Did you give up your dream of going to college? Life can sometimes get in the way of big dreams. For many of us, the dream that got lost along the way was finishing a degree or even going to college in the first place. Not that we would go back and change our lives—because the things that side tracked our education are the very things that we cherish the most. We just had too much living to do. So, we got married and had our children. We worked long hours to provide for our families. And, the happy years just slipped by.
Only now and then did we even let the regret surface—the thoughts of what might have been. Well, you can turn those fleeting visions of what might have been into what can be or what is—today’s reality.
You can go back to school. You can join, and learn right along with, students young enough to be your grandchildren. You can take one class or a full load. If a degree is still important to you and you have the financial ability to pay for, then by all means go for it.
Alternatively, if that degree no longer matters, then you can choose to study any subject you want to, right from your desk or easy chair. Hundreds of courses are available online. You can “sit in on classes” at UC Berkeley, MIT or even study climate change at Harvard. Several course podcasts, audio for most and even video for some, are offered each semester. You have to use your ingenuity to get the textbooks and create your own syllabus for a lot of the classes, though some professors even make their class websites available. So do a search on course podcasts and see what’s available.
You can even develop your own courses using library resources or used textbooks available at the big bookstores online. At times, you won’t believe the prices. Some can be bought for a dollar or two.
Learning doesn’t have to be limited to academic courses. Lots of local libraries, schools and senior citizen centers offer a wide variety of continuing education classes. You can find photography and painting classes or dance and music instruction, along with many others.
Remember, today it’s called lifelong learning and there’s a reason that term has become so widely used. After all there’s no need to ever stop learning. If you’re looking for a way to keep your mind active and study all those things you always wanted to know about, then go back to school. It’s never too late to chase that dream of a degree or just getting back to learning, as Richard Feynman said, “for the pleasure of finding things out.”
