I started university for the first time at 55 with Gen Z classmates
I’ve learned it’s never too late to fulfil a longtime dream
This First Person column is by Colleen Sharpe, who is a second-year student at the University of King's College in Halifax. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.
I grinned to myself as the bus transported me and my new backpack full of books, paper and pens toward campus. It was my first day of realizing a years-long dream. My excitement grew as I got off the bus at a campus stop and found the classrooms.
Going into my small tutorial classroom, I glimpsed students looking expectantly at me as though I were the professor — perhaps a natural assumption since I was the only grey-haired person in the room. But when I took a seat among them instead of at the head of the room, they all quickly looked back down at their phones while I awkwardly riffled through my backpack.
I didn't just go back to school at age 55. I began university for the first time in my 50s. For years, I would longingly read stories of older people going "back" to school, but typically, they were going to graduate school. I hadn't even had the opportunity to start — much less complete — an undergraduate degree, which was unusual given I had always loved being in school.
Growing up, I had won spelling bees and math certificates. I once memorized the human body's circulatory system just for fun. I thrived on organizing my homework assignments in a little notebook.
However, my parents' divorce, my father's undiagnosed mental illness and my family's involvement in a conservative religious culture that shamed rock music, dating and women's education left me feeling depressed and sometimes suicidal during high school. When I had to drop a Grade 11 academic math course because I could no longer keep up with the workload of my university-prep courses, I felt I had lost my identity and hopes.
I briefly considered going to hairdressing school, but by my last year of high school, my motivation was lost to undiagnosed depression.
My next 35-plus years were filled with jobs, marriage, children, volunteer work and the relief of depression treatment. I decided to give my children a home-based education, and I set about to figure out how. Today I know I made that decision because I loved learning. I wanted to pass this love on to my children. While planning their high school courses and helping them research post-secondary options, I began dreaming about attending university as well.
On the practical side, perhaps a degree would lead to interesting job opportunities. On the dreaming side, I had learned through the home-education project just how endlessly fascinating history, science and literature could be. Of course, I could just read and try writing on my own about any subject for the rest of my life. However, I wanted to do this with the feedback of experienced professors. I also felt that earning a degree would validate me to myself in a way that self-study couldn't. I had unfinished business of wanting to prove to myself that I was academically capable.
Still, the idea seemed impossible — no time, no money and no confidence that I would be able to handle that level of learning. Nevertheless, I voraciously planned out multiple degrees for myself in nursing, costume studies, law, Irish studies, linguistics, cultural studies and more. By 2019, both our children had finished homeschooling, and I was self-employed as a reading tutor.
Then tragedy hit our family in July 2021. Our then-20-year-old daughter was struck by a car and nearly killed. Our family got through this together with a lot of support, and helping my daughter recover became the focus of my life for the next two years. The shock of nearly losing her imprinted upon me just how fleeting life is.
In 2023, the idea of university surfaced yet again and I yearningly talked with a friend about it. She bluntly told me to apply because if I arrived at my deathbed without having tried, I would regret it.
So, one month before the fall 2023 semester was to begin, I applied for school and financial aid, "just to see what would happen." I doubted I would be accepted for either.
Within weeks, I opened an acceptance email from the University of King's College in Halifax. I also received provincial and federal financial aid, with more grants than I expected, in addition to zero per cent interest loans. I had time, and now money was available. The last thing I needed was confidence, which would not arrive unless I actually committed to school. I wavered under overwhelming fears: could I keep up with all my responsibilities, would any of my younger classmates accept me, how would my husband and I make ends meet with my reduced self-employment schedule?
However, with my husband's encouragement, I decided to take the plunge. What followed was the exhilaration of learning, as well as the overwhelming amount of work that I hadn't experienced since I cared for my newborn babies. My fellow students breezily tapped keys on their laptops, effortlessly formatting outlines during lectures while my hand cramped around my pen as I fumbled for the first time in many years with how to rapidly take useful notes.
When a longtime friend called partway through my first month in university to ask how things were going, he calmly listened to me sob, "I can't do this," and then gave me a pep talk.
I decided to face my fears head-on. I memorized the names of every student in my tutorial group so I could greet them by name. I sat in different seats during daily lectures to try to engage in conversation during breaks. Emme and I shared our lives with each other on bus rides home. Kate offered to look over my papers. Later, I taught Kate to embroider.
I had lost freedom with time, but, oh, the freedom that began to open in my mind while learning so many philosophical, historical and literary ideas with these kind students. I also may or may not have learned a Gen Z cultural reference or two, one of them being "boygenius," and I may or may not have had to do some research to get a better understanding of it.
Blessedly, the trauma of my daughter's accident began to fade. I stared down anxiety-filled semester-end oral exams as best as I could and finished my first year in April 2024 with new friends and a final grade that boosted my confidence.
My current hope is to combine English and the history of science and esoterica into a degree. While I wrestled with the practicality of this decision, I realized that as a mature student I already knew how to live my life practically. I wanted a chance to deepen my thinking skills through studying ideas that interested me. I came to understand that doing this enriches my practical skills anyway.
My university journey so far has proven to me that I am indeed academically capable. But more than that, it has taught me that if I desire to make a life change and can figure out how to make it happen, then my age does not matter. The bonus is that even when I question my academic abilities, my Gen Z classmates are among my biggest supporters.
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