My Generation

I went the traditional route once. I finished high school, left home and went to college at 18. I remember pretty clearly how badly I wanted to believe that college was my chance to become the person I wanted to be. A person much cooler than the me I had been stuck with anyway. I think I bought into the picture of college more than I cared to admit at the time. I was told, or maybe I picked it up in movies, that college was going to be the best time of my life. The place I'd meet the friends I'd have forever and maybe the girl I would marry. Imagine my surprise then, when it was just a bunch of insecure eighteen year olds like me, so terrified of sounding uncool, they said nothing at all.

I had thought before entering my current program that the need to belong would be behind me. At 27 I am entering the program as a virtual freshman, making me a decade older than most of my classmates. This should be an advantage. I am a mature adult who is comfortable in his own skin. I'm happily married and have a son for crying out loud, was I really lame enough to care what some punk youth thought of me? Apparently yes.

As a non-traditional student, you have to assume some people are going to pick up on the fact you are an outsider. To be honest though, I naively thought I could be the exception to this. I had been given the impression I had a youthful quality. I have often been mistaken for someone younger and have had many people at least feign surprise when I had given them my age, "Really?" They ask. Blinded by pride, I failed to recognize the pattern in all these instances. The mistakes had only come from people older than me. I never realized this, but no nineteen year old has ever said something like, "Wow, I could have sworn you were my age." I am convinced the discrepancy stems from young people being far more perceptive than old people. Partly we older folks make it easy for them, eventually we have to stop following fashion trends. Often not because we don't like the clothes kids wear, as most of us claim, but because we are physically insufficient in areas needed to pull them off. Young people can easily sense this lack of hipness. They can clearly see the freshman fifteen you never lost.

All the same I found myself torn between two competing urges. On the one hand I liked not caring what people thought of me. On the other, I didn't want to be old. My goal had suddenly become not to be grouped with the other non-traditional students. I wanted to be in the younger crowd, that's right, the cool crowd. I am not at all proud of this, but I can't help it. When I saw that fellow non-traditional student come towards me on the first day of class I panicked. I knew that if I were to acknowledge her that day, we would be forever bound together by our age. Which in my opinion was unfair because technically, I was closer to my younger classmates in age than I was to her. But of course this matters little to a lonely old lady hellbent on ruining any chance of a slightly younger old person to be considered "one of the gang". Young people still use that expression right? So I did the only thing I could think of that day, and ignored her. I avoided eye contact whenever possible and if she approached my desk, I practically shooed her away. I was determined not to be pigeonholed so soon.

I had actually thought I was succeeding until a week ago. I was sitting next to a traditional freshman while our somewhat tech-deficient, middle aged professor was struggling to get a projector to function properly. While she continued to fumble, many of the students in the back of the class sort of snickered and rolled their eyes at one another. I mentioned to the girl next to me, that I couldn't laugh because I would be the same way if I tried to get it working. She said, "Really? That's so funny. I guess it's weird how everyone in my generation is so tech savvy."

She wasn't trying to be mean, she didn't say it to insult me. It was stated as fact, which seemed to make it sting all the more. According to her, I was simply not a part of her generation. I was so unexpectedly hurt by this that I nearly corrected her, "Well young lady, a generation actually refers to a span of twenty or thirty years." Then it hit me, Wait, does she think I'm forty?

I don't mean to sound like I would attend a house party if I were asked or anything. No one wants to be the guy at a party checking all the bedrooms to make sure everyone is conscious and wearing protection, which would undoubtedly be me. I have no "Old School" fantasy of returning as an old man to do all those things I missed out on as a traditional student. I just don't want to be limited to partnering with the one older lady in my class for every project. Is that so bad? Yes?
Well, the next time you find yourself in a freshman seminar with the option of partnering with a normal kid, or an old lady. I hope you enjoy yourself while listening to her drone on and on about her granddaughter's hockey team.