I am a better student as a mature adult than I was as a young person. Although that may seem obvious—I am marginally more mature at 60 than I was at 20—I don’t think it is. To wit: I don’t have as much energy as I used to, and I’m sure I’ve lost a few brain cells along the way.
The first time round in academia, I was a good student. But I didn’t shine. Though I hate to admit it, I think I had a sense of entitlement. I’d never had to work too hard to get good grades, except in math. And learning math, for me, was a near impossibility, so I just tried to get by as best I could.
To give my younger self some credit, I really don’t think working harder at math would have helped. I needed tutoring. My problem wasn’t laziness. It was, I believe now, an unrecognized learning disability.
Anyway, I put in my usual effort in college and got reasonable grades. I knew I could do better, though, the year I hung out with a group of overachievers. They spent every night in the library, so I did too. Studying became part of my social life, and I aced my classes.
Of course, my social life was much more important to me then. I’m not even sure I have one now. Between work, school and household, who has the time? I certainly wasn’t out partying every night in college, but as long as I was getting As and Bs, I was content.
This time, the distractions are few. My classes are all online. I’ll earn a higher salary when I receive my master’s degree, so my motivation is high. My husband, Paul, respects my need to ignore him for an hour or two daily. I don’t have any extracurricular activities to keep me away from my studies.
I can ensconce myself in an easy chair with my laptop and work away. It’s a good thing my smart watch tells me to move every 60 minutes. Otherwise, I might die in the saddle and Paul might not find me for a day or two.
My work ethic has much improved over the last 40 years. It’s true that our undergraduate years aren’t just about academics. It’s a time to grow, to develop into young adulthood. I guess I did, because I don’t expect my grades to be handed to me on a silver platter anymore.
Since I’ve spent the last 40 years writing (first for my college newspaper and then professionally), the communication aspects of my classes come easily to me. That’s a huge benefit, especially because discussion boards are a major part of online learning.
I’ve managed, in fact, to score a 4.0 grade point average—until now.
Yes, I’ve met my nemesis again. It’s a good thing I didn’t realize this course was coming. It is beguilingly called “Research,” but it’s not about the kind of research I like to do. As a librarian, I’m happy to dig away at any reference question put to me. But, no; this class is about testing and—drum roll—statistics.
Statistics. Math.
Not only that, but this class features biweekly quizzes. Most of my master’s classes haven’t had any tests at all. We did projects and wrote papers. So here I am, a true victim of math anxiety, facing exams twice a week.
My hands literally shake as I start the work.
Of course, it is open book, since it’s online. But it is also timed. (The math-anxious person’s worst nightmare.) The test-taker cannot be looking up answers in the textbook; it would take too long. So I have had to come up with a system of note cards and crib sheets, which I color-code, to get me through the process.
Already, by missing one or two answers on the 30-question quizzes, my 4.0 GPA is disappearing.
It interests me that I care so much about that. My parents only wanted me to get As and Bs. They never pushed me to excel. In elementary school, I was probably the smartest girl in the class until 6th grade. I say that because when we went on to junior high, we were placed in homogeneous groups. One boy in my class, and a girl who’d arrived in 6th grade, were in the top group (we were all well aware of the rankings) and I was in the second. Everyone else was below us.
So I think I could have been an all-A student if I had tried harder. At that age, however, I was reluctant to appear too bright.
Now I have some kind of perfectionist thing going on. When I grumbled because I got 27 out of 30 on a quiz that I thought was pretty tough, Paul scoffed. “You’re not going to get upset about an A minus, are you?”
Well, I guess I’ve become that kind of person.
When it comes to the big quiz on statistics, I might just have to let it go, as a Zen master might say. I will study, I will prep, I will do my best.
I can cry later—and maybe get a spa treatment. There are advantages to being a mature student, after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment