Huh, I Guess I’m Going Back to School

Apparently, after sixteen years of saying I might go back to school “someday,” I have reached the elusive "someday" told of in myth and legend. 

It started innocently enough. I was exploring what a more physically sustainable second career could look like and asking myself what I would actually want to do if I stopped immediately dismissing things as impractical.

It started with outlining my skills and experience, then browsing prospective job descriptions. Job descriptions led to degree requirements. Degree requirements led to college websites. College websites led to transfer requirements, course catalogs, old transcripts, placement testing, and me voluntarily researching calculus.

Things escalated quickly.

And somewhere in the middle of all that research, something shifted. I stopped thinking, Wouldn't it have been nice if I'd gone to college? and started thinking: Huh. I guess I'm going back to school.

"Someday" Has Arrived

When I originally chose massage therapy, flexibility was one of its greatest appeals. I could build a career that allowed me to control my schedule, earn a living without being confined to a traditional workweek, and perhaps eventually use that flexibility to return to school. Then massage became the "most practical" career. I got busy building my practice and clientele, learning, helping clients, making a living, mentoring, and generally becoming an adult. Going back to school remained in the background as something I could theoretically do later.

Sixteen years later, the irony isn't lost on me.

The career I once thought would help me go to college eventually became the reason I kept postponing college—and now it may be exactly what allows me to finally return to it. I don't need to stop being a massage therapist to become a student. I can continue doing work I love while gradually building something new alongside it.

I can let one career support the beginning of another, like it was always supposed to. 

College Looks Very Different at 36

I've been tracking down transcripts from Olympic College from 2008 and 2009 and trying to recover an AP Literature score from high school that I think counted towards a college credit.

I've just taken a college placement exam to find out where my reading, writing, and math skills currently stand after a rather lengthy absence from formal education.

I've learned more than I ever wanted to know about prerequisites, transfer requirements, articulation agreements, semester units, general education, and the surprisingly complicated process of answering what seems like a simple question:

What classes should I take?

But this time, education feels completely different.

At 18, college seemed like a giant decision I was supposed to make before I had enough life experience to understand the question.

At 36, I know why I'm there. I don't need to have every class or eventual job title mapped out yet, but I know what I want to become capable of doing. I want to understand ecosystems beyond simply appreciating them. I want to understand watersheds, erosion, geology, conservation, regenerative land stewardship, environmental policy, and how human decisions shape landscapes. I want to learn GIS and become comfortable interpreting environmental data. I want to understand enough science to participate meaningfully in conversations about how land and natural resources are managed. 

Most importantly, I want to learn how to turn that knowledge into useful work. That makes even the intimidating classes feel different.

Apparently I’m Taking Calculus

Math and I have some catching up to do.

It has been a while.

Calculus for the sake of checking a calculus box doesn't particularly excite me. Calculus that helps me understand scientific relationships, rates of change, environmental data, or ecological systems? Alright, now you've got my attention.

The same thing applies to geology, biology, statistics, GIS, and other subjects that once might have seemed like requirements standing between me and a degree. Now they feel like tools. I'm not asking, What is the easiest way to graduate? I'm asking, How do I become a genuinely competitive candidate for the jobs I want? I suspect 18-year-old me and 36-year-old me would have approached college very differently.

I’m Bringing Quite a Lot With Me

For a while, returning to school felt intimidating because I imagined myself beginning at the bottom of an entirely new field. But I finally realized that I don't have to walk into a classroom and leave the previous sixteen years at the door.

I already know how to work with people. I've managed businesses, finances, facilities, schedules, customer relationships, employees, marketing, projects, and the endless small problems that come with making something function. I've taught people about vermiculture and TNR, worked with community members, built things, grown things, organized things, and learned how to communicate complicated or uncomfortable information in ways people can actually understand.

None of that makes me an environmental professional - I have a tremendous amount to learn. School isn't replacing my professional experience. It's adding a new layer of technical knowledge to it and that is much more exciting than “starting over.”

There’s Something Nice About Being a Beginner

Being a beginner at 36 also feels surprisingly freeing.

I don't need to be the smartest person in the room. I don't need to pretend I remember algebra that I absolutely do not remember. I can ask questions. I can use tutoring. I can take the prerequisite before the prerequisite if that's what I need.

There is no prize for pretending to know something.

I think adulthood has made me much more comfortable saying, I don't know how to do that yet. The important word is yet. For the first time in a long time, I am looking several years into the future and imagining not simply where I might live or what job I might have, but what I might know and accomplish. 

That's so exciting!

A few years from now, I could understand things that currently feel completely foreign to me. I could read maps and scientific reports differently. I could recognize ecological relationships I currently walk past without noticing. I could contribute to projects I am not yet qualified to participate in. There is something almost magical about realizing that the distance between I don't know how to do that and I know how to do that is sometimes just time, effort, education, and the willingness to begin.

So yes, at 36 years old, sixteen years into a career I still love, I appear to be going back to school.

I'm nervous.

I'm excited.

And this time, I know exactly why I'm showing up.