When I graduated high school in 1999, I never thought about earning a college degree. (Photo by Sarah Burchard)

By Sarah Burchard | Staff Writer

Stories and advice from a 43-year-old college student.

Sometimes on Friday nights, when I’m lying on my back with a pillow under my knees, feet throbbing from waiting tables all day, I start to question my life decisions. 

I had so few aspirations in high school. The summer before my 9th-grade year, I moved away from my hometown in San Diego and never got over it. Instead of being excited, I was depressed. I found friends who shared the same vices I did, and in leu of studying hard and planning for college, I started working at 15 and got wasted in my spare time. My only goal was to save enough money to buy a car so I could move back to San Diego as soon as possible.

After graduating high school, I spent a year floundering in community college and dropped out. 

I didn’t regret my decisions for about two decades. But now, if I could go back 30 years in time and talk to my teenage self, I would have urged myself to at least earn an associate’s degree, so I could have had more job opportunities when I needed them. I started feeling this way when I decided to change careers in my late 30s. Everything was fine until then. I’d gone to culinary school and, for 12 years, had a successful career in the restaurant business that took me all the way up the industry ladder. I was running my own kitchen as chef de cuisine and earned three stars from the San Francisco Chronicle. 

However, when I burned out in my early 30s and left my job, I had no other skills or degree to fall back on. Walking away from a steady salary into a world of entrepreneurship and “gigs” made me see how hard the “real world” was without formal education. Just like culinary school helped me get started in the restaurant business, I knew college was what I needed for the next phase of my life. I tried to get away with taking online workshops and private courses, but by the time I got into my 40s I realized I needed more depth and that college degrees were really what most employers wanted to see.

I want to sit my 19-year-old self down and say, “Look, I know you are apathetic toward college, but you are getting a sweet deal right now. You are living at home, rent free, and only paying $50 per credit tuition. Suck it up and finish.” I lament all those nights I wasted in a fog of alcohol, drugs and self-loathing.

Now that I’m starting over again, it is much harder to fit classes into my full-time work schedule, and school costs almost three times as much. During my first semester back, I watched both my savings and checking account dwindle to $0. Applying for FAFSA was helpful in paying for my tuition, but replacing work hours with school hours makes it difficult to pay the bills, so I’ve had to keep the work hours and pile school hours on top.

Do you need a college degree to be successful? Some say yes, some say no. I can feel how much I missed by not finishing college from everything I am learning at KCC now. Now that I am changing careers and job hunting, I can see how much a college degree helps to get past the application phase.  

I’m still glad I went to culinary school and became a chef; the restaurant business has always, and continues to pay my bills. My past brought me to where I am now: A mid-40s college student, enjoying school for the first time in my life. Yeah, it’s a challenge and I could have had it a lot easier, but I’m happy.

Still, I would have pushed myself. I would have earned that degree. 

 

Post comments, questions or concerns about navigating life as a nontraditional student below.

Sarah Burchard is a staff writer and advice columnist for Kapiʻo News. She is a Honolulu-based food and travel writer and creator of The Healthy Locavore. You can read more Midlifer’s Guide To College here.