I Went Back to College at 29 and It Was the Best Thing I’ve Ever Done
Here’s why learning later in life is one of the most rewarding experiences you can have.
Let me take you back to January 2020; fires are raging in Australia, talk of Covid hitting the UK is beginning to circulate, and I am sitting at my desktop editing a brand advert when the email notification pings…
I open it up, expecting to see some typically frustrating client request staring me in the face, but instead, I’m greeted with a single sentence that makes my stomach twitch and my heart skip. My secret desire I had been harbouring for well over a year, yet been too embarrassed or self-doubting to pursue was about to become very real:
We are pleased to offer you an unconditional place on access to HE diploma: Science.
19 months, 11 distinctions, 4 merits, and 1 diploma later, I can confidently say that not only was going back to college one of the best and most rewarding experiences of my life, but also that I enjoyed education as an adult far more than I ever did during my childhood school days, and I liked school.
Why did I decide to do an adult learning course?
I was 28 years old, doing well in my career, already overstretched in my workload, and had the looming presence of Covid overhead that was surely going to have financial implications. Yet here I was signing up for a course in a subject that I had no experience in and no real ambition to pursue a career in, willing to commit 3 full days a week (excluding the independent learning and countless assignments), and cough up over £3000 to do so.
What the hell was I thinking?!
From the outside, it probably looked like an early-onset midlife crisis. And it kind of was…but there were 3 reasons I wanted to take on a science diploma, and it is without a doubt one of the best decisions I have ever made, no matter how crazy it may have seemed to others.
Firstly, I was getting bored of commercial filmmaking. When we start to become experts in our line of work, the margins of growth become smaller and smaller, and after 7 years of dealing with clients and budgets, I longed for the feeling of freedom and wide-eyed wonder again. Secondly, I was struggling to say no to clients, and I figured by committing to something of this scale, I would be forced to start declining work and unnecessary meetings, and start to prioritise myself over my clients. And lastly, I was reading physics articles in my spare time yet continuously finding myself frustrated by my limited understanding, which made it almost impossible for me to wrap my head around many of the details.
Skip forward a year and all of my wishes have been answered — I can now understand most of what I read, and if I don’t, I know how to find my way there. I have learned how to turn away clients that I feel do not respect the time boundaries of a working-relationship, which has been a huge blessing, freeing up time for me to prioritise family and explore more self-sufficient revenue ideas. Most surprisingly though, it reignited my passion for film, and has given me the drive to actively start transitioning into TV and features, as I’ve always told myself I would one day.
Why You Should Consider Adult Education
You may be thinking these are all very specific to me, so let’s discuss why should you consider enrolling in an adult education course. The idea of going back into a learning environment can be terrifying, especially if it wasn’t a particularly enjoyable experience growing up, so here are 3 huge reasons I’d recommend adult education to anyone.
1. It feels far more relevant to our everyday lives.
Unlike our school days where we feel that 90% of what we learn has 0% application in what we do, as adults, we can instantly apply what we learn. My science course covered biology, physics, and chemistry, and whilst I came for the physics, I stayed for the biology. I hated biology at school, but through this course, I completely fell in awe of every single aspect of it, and found myself constantly trying to implement what I learned into my own lifestyle; realising what carbs and fats actually are and the different health implications within each of these areas was somewhat frightening, for years I’d stared at the back of packages in the supermarket trying to decode what the hell a polyunsaturated fat might be, and now I was able to do so!
When you can start to apply your newfound knowledge to your everyday life, the world opens up for you. You could be a writer who takes a geology course and as a result, unearths a rich history in the local neighbourhood that leads to your next novel. You could be a marketeer who signs up for a psychology course and ends up getting promoted as your sales skyrocket. As you start making connections between your old life and your new one, exciting things start to happen.
2. Confidence & empowerment.
As kids, we are told that we can achieve anything we put our minds to, that the sky is the limit, but as we get older, the narrative shifts — we are told to have a backup plan, take the ‘safe’ option, and stay in our lane.
I’m calling time on this negative direction.
In an age of comparison, it pays dividends to gain a sense of confidence in your own ability, and surprisingly, I found one of the best ways to do this is by plunging yourself into a world where you have zero ability. My very first lesson on day 1 moved at 100mph and was a seismic shock to the system. I instantly felt out of my depth as every other student rolled off different types of organelles and their function whilst I frantically googled — ‘what is an organelle?’
Yet I was determined to hang in there and slowly but surely I caught up within a few weeks. I found myself growing in confidence to speak up, to challenge ideas, and trust in my own process, and if I was wrong then great! Ego goes out the window when everyone is proven wrong at some point or another, and a culture of listening and humility fills its place. Better yet, this growth in confidence was not limited to the classroom; it stretched over to my work and social circles.
3. Opportunity and connections.
Obviously, there is the qualification that comes from doing a course, which can lead to new doors opening, but there is also the chance of meeting connections that may change your life in ways you had never expected.
You never know who you’re going to meet, and what opportunities it may lead to. Someone’s husband may be an influential figure in your industry, or a classmate may share your quirky passion and draw you to start a new joint business venture. Hell, you may even meet your future husband or wife!
It is not always immediately evident what opportunities may come from the course and the connections you might make, but they are the seeds that may one day transform into ripe fruit. In my case, the education itself has immediately improved my opportunities within the film industry in an unexpected way…
At the same time as doing the diploma and working on commercials, I somehow found time to write a TV pilot screenplay that ended up getting selected as the winning script in a UK screenplay contest, which led to pitch meetings with the studio executives behind Line of Duty and A Very English Scandal. How did my science course help with that? I had infused my winning script with a scientific touch that was only possible after doing this course, like this line below:
“From above we see the platform is abuzz, bustling particles in Brownian motion.”
How to Pick the Course and the Provider
Chances are, if you are considering an adult education course, then you have some idea as to what you want to study, but as I discovered, the courses you can take as an adult are not the same ones you take as a child.
Step 1: Understand what the levels are.
In the UK you take GCSEs at school, A levels at college, and degrees at University. I already had my GCSEs in science, but I was in no way ready or able to do a science degree, so naturally, I looked for A levels. It turns out though that whilst English and Maths A levels are available to adults online, a vast range of courses are not. I only learned this after calling a London college to ask how does an adult acquire a physics A level? They don’t. Instead, there is something called an ‘Access to Higher Education Diploma’, which is a one-year intensive bridging qualification between school and University.
With this knowledge in hand, I could start my search of colleges that provided this course and were within distance of where I wanted to be. The best way to learn what course you need to take to get where you want to get to, is to speak to a couple of advisors from different educational institutes.
Step 2: Understand the financial implications and options.
My course cost roughly £3000. It’s a lot, for sure, but the entire amount can be paid either upfront or through an advanced learner loan that gets completely wiped off if you go onto do a degree (within a certain time frame).
Now, initially, I thought I may want to go on and do a degree in Physics with Nuclear Astrophysics…I’ve since decided that committing 3 years to an expensive degree in an area I am unlikely to pursue as a career is not the wisest step, but I had already decided beforehand that £3000 was an acceptable sum to pay if I decided not to go onto a degree, and thankfully I wouldn’t have to pay it all in one. It was a calculated risk.
Your own financial situation is only known by you, and that risk management must be decided by you, just make sure you take the time to fully understand the costs, the clauses, and the timeframes.
Step 3: Chat to the course provider.
If you are unsure where to go, the best piece of advice I can give is to call up and talk to the course providers. I spoke to the course leader at my college prior to signing up and immediately felt at home. The last thing you want to do is take on a year-long (or longer) commitment with people you don’t think will support you. We have to balance work and family commitments, and having course providers who understand this and are supportive in helping you work around these aspects of adult life will make all the difference!
All in all, only you can decide if and what you might like to study as an adult, but undoubtedly, it will challenge you, it will reward you, and it will empower you.
