What are the biggest adjustments adults have to make when going back to school?
As an enrollment counselor, I see prospective students every day who are apprehensive of returning to the classroom. As a graduate student myself, returning after a long absence from the classroom, I was very nervous about completing my master’s degree at this point in my life. There was a 20-year span between graduating with my bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1986 and returning to earn my master of science in management in 2006. By the time I finished my first course, however, it felt very natural. The design of the program using a ‘cohort’ model helps to facilitate this. And, the first course in my program was designed specifically for students returning to the classroom after an absence. The adjustment is made much easier by the fact that you attend only one course at a time, albeit at an accelerated pace. I’m considered a full-time student since I complete 12 hours per semester, and I find this single-minded focus on one class at a time to be very beneficial to me.
