Concept essay.
Concept is adults going back to school.
Has to be at least 1300 words. I only have 600!
Final Draft Word Count and Setup Requirement:
1300-1500 words (plus a correctly formatted APA cover page)
12-point Times New Roman font
Double-spaced lines
3rd person point of view
**** What I have ****
Introduction
Going back and trying to finish school when long past their twenties can be a frightening experience for adult students. When students start college fresh from High school, they have few responsibilities and fresh memory of the tools they’ve learned that will prepare them through the years. Students starting college years in their fifties will not only find it challenging but even downright impossible at times. While heading back to further education can be very exciting, challenges such as memory, responsibility, and financial hardship can prove to be even more intimidating,
1, Memory is a much-needed tool when continuing your education. Students fresh from high school have the benefits of young minds that are used to soaking up all that new information. Most of those students can adapt to change and new technology. Senior students need to not only be able to utilize information they learned back in high school, but they also must memorize even more education and of course do all this in the ever-changing twists technology has thrown into education. As the brain ages along with the student, it becomes harder and harder to call upon those lessons that were taken back in High School. So, a student beginning classes in their 50’s is challenged to pull forth memories of lessons that have barely been used since High school, while processing and memorizing even more education.
2, Most senior students have families and are faced with trying to balance their family household with their decision to go back to school. Juggling their homework along with their children’s homework and or their spouses work responsibilities is not just challenging, it’s a superhero fantasy at times. Running errands, the dishes, the cooking, the cleaning, the family bonding can sometimes push the senior students’ studies to the long past bedtime hours. Unless a lucky lottery ticket falls from the sky, most senior students are also working a 30-to-40-hour job. They must be able to go to work, keep focused on the job at hand all the while knowing there are chapters that need to be read, essays that need to be written, and tests that need to be studied for. All of this can lead to the potential of burning out from all angles, not just the student side of thing. Attempting to find a balance that is needed to keep juggling all those responsibilities, could make it very tempting to just give up.
3, Financial hardship is also a huge challenge when adults make the jump from thinking and wishing about going back to finish school, to taking the plunge. College tuition, even with the help of student loans can be overwhelming. Adult students have car payments, mortgages, grocery bills, utility bills and or childcare that they are already trying to manage without the monstrous college debt added to it. So many adults are parents that have spent year’s saving for their children’s college education so it can almost feel like spending any money on their own education is a possibility that is no longer a possibility. Thankfully there are many programs out there that will help with the tuition extras that are not covered by financial aid.
Conclusion
Adult students no doubt have a lot of challenges ahead of them. They need to prioritize their schedules so that they can balance the household chores, family obligations, and their school lessons as they are due. They need to constantly be aware and prepare for the inevitable hardships of the memory not being as sharp as it once was. While those challenges may make them feel like the degree is a very distant dream, with persistence and determination they will find their way to that graduation stage that alluded them for so long.
