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Education Inspiration: Lauren Okker, 38

I went back to school in my mid-thirties. After enrolling in a history class I was told I could not write a passing essay. That brought me to tears. The instructor recommended the college writing lab. It wouldn't have occurred to me to go there. Frankly, I was embarrassed. They were helpful at the lab. My coach said that simply because I had never learned the documentation style, I wasn't a loser. That helped.
As the semester went on, my essays came back with better grades and great comments from the instructor. I still hate organizing and rewriting. I want to get it right the first time. But by the end of my second year, my lit instructor told me that I should consider changing majors to English. That's amazing to me.
I think older students are more focused. But many never learn about the help that's out there. I'd say, give yourself a chance.
Lauren Okker, 38
Newark, NJ

In high school, I had to do a report on the Vietnam War for history class. I was stuck. The book I had checked out was boring and filled with unfamiliar names and dates. Uninspired, I caught the city bus home. Along the way, an older man across the aisle saw the book and said simply: "I was there." He didn't tell me much more than that, really. Just that he had been shipped off to Vietnam when he was still a teenager, about my age. It was hot and humid there, easy to get lost in the jungle. Hard to see the enemy. Somehow what he said--and didn't say--told me more about the war than the textbook. He had a long scar on his arm that disappeared into his shirtsleeve. When I got home, the report just wrote itself.
Katherine H., 33
California, USA

When my family moved across the country, I was in the middle of the tenth grade. I found myself lonely at a new school, and my grades dropped. After a term of summer school Algebra, I wasn't looking forward to school anymore. That fall, I found myself in Ms. Rifkin's Journalism class. She encouraged me to write editorial articles from my world, even though my world was mostly pep rallies and boring classes. In the hour I saw her every day, she focused on the events of my teenage world, and asked me to challenge them. Though I didn't realize it at the time, she treated the school like a city, and her students like professional journalists. The importance of a deadline was something I needed to learn, and my grades improved with my self-confidence. Ms. Rifkin taught me to make my own headlines in life.
Amy G., 23
TX, USA

I've learned that it is never too late to get your education. The first step was the hardest: to overcome the fear of failure, and to motivate myself to go to class more than 20 years after high school graduation. It was one of the best decisions I've ever made. I gained so much, and I loved every moment of it.
Debra
Huntington Beach, CA

To be brutally honest, I cursed every day of my schooling. Fitting squarely into the non-traditional student definition, I worked full-time during the day and attended classes at Georgia State University in the evenings. I also completed an array of online courses on my way to a graduate degree. And while I cursed those days then, I look back on them now quite fondly for I know finishing my degree was the single greatest thing I've ever done in my life.
And so if I could impart only one piece of advice on those struggling campus and online college students out there, it would be this: "Never give up on your goals and never, ever quit working." Because, as hard as it may be to believe, there will be an end. An end to the research and studying. An end to the critical responses and literature reviews. An end to the stress and rigors of noble academic pursuits. And, if you're like me, you'll probably miss it when it's gone.
Kelly R, 33
Atlanta, Georgia, United States