Band on the Run, you went to law school? Would love ot hear more about that. What do you mean by 'cultural reasons' referring to the apologetic girl?
Billy, congrats! As everyone else said ad nauseum, unless you can't hear enough!
Reading through the comments on this and your root thread really was amazing and brought back a lot of memories. I feel a bit ashamed I'm not in school now!
Couple of memories for me that I hope can help others here thinking about uni, etc.
My family were devout Witnesses and at least while I was growing up very poor and started moving around alot when I hit 13. I found having to re-initialize the militant JW stance everytime I changed schools and areas tortuous, and the stress was unreal. The irony is that everywhere we moved, the school officials and classmates were very welcoming, but I had to keep them at arms length as a devout JW, so it was then that the problems started. I started getting ulcers at 14, and on the 5th school change that year, I just refused to go. There was a kerfuffle, and my parents got "correspondence" for me, basically unassisted homeschooling. I gave High school a shot the next year, and basically had a total breakdown.
After I left the WTS at 21, I was a real mess in many ways. Grade 9 education being the least of them. I worked construction and used to drive to the college library in the next city just to read interesting books on psychology and coaching and absorb the youth atmosphere.
I got laid off my dead end job, and looked at the ABE (Adult Basic Education) satellite of the city college. I was able to go for a few months while I collected Unemployment Insurance, and that really hooked me. It was really rough to start, but I met a few friends along the way.
Billy, your story really reminded me of a few things, the roadblocks along the way to get around. For example, the first ABE campus I went to, the majority of people were welfare bums just looking for a way to keep the handouts going. I was on UI, but most were on welfare and had nothing other than instrumental reasons to be there. That kind of attitude and lifestyle can wear off on you if you're not careful. Second, I didn't fit into any category, so risked falling off the screen. What I mean is that I needed to upgrade my highschool education, but either had to pay huge fees privately, and I was living hand-to-mouth and simply couldn't afford it, or enter the welfare system. The problem with the welfare system is that they would only fund my education if I was "unemployable", and remained so for 6 months or something, as in a single mom or crazy or something. If I was "able bodied", they would get me a dead end job and be done with it.
I put in a LOT of leg work and charisma and taxed my friends. I remember call after call, riding the bus, and literally budgeting my coins and getting turned down again and again and again. I moved to the city and eventually an official at a college went out on a limb for me. She saw what was going on made an exception in my case to write a letter for me which allowed me to apply for funding (which I got), possibly risking her own job. After getting high school, I was able to fit into the normal student loan program and whatnot. I am still very appreciative of it all.
Funny thing, I remember being overwhelmed by the atmosphere of the classroom. Lots of bad memories. Almost gave up on education initially. And the many aspects of garbage from being a JW. The comments made earlier about education being mocked. Lots more. Too much to articulate perhaps. The last time I had any contact with my brother a couple of years ago, probably for the rest of our lives, he made a sneer about me having an education.
More related to your post, I've found different universities will have different atmospheres. And different departments and programs also. For example, my university had tons of "mature students", and it was very comfortable for such. I remember at my grad ceremony one guy got up who was in his late 60s, and you should have heard the roar of support from his classmates. My department (Applied Linguistics) tended to have a lot of older students and women, as well as international students. I know some classes I saw, such as 1st year Psychology and such were almost all 18 year old newbies. Grad studies (Masters, PhD degrees) were a different, much more mature beast, entirely. I was always envious of their shorter, more politely staffed lines at registration, loans, and whatnot!
