Colleges and universities in Ireland are currently offering places to eager young things with great hopes of future careers and prosperous lives. They will pour into the lecture halls and tutorials chatting to each other, wearing their trendiest clothes, with an array of coloured pens and the latest laptops. Generally they will sit in the middle area of the seating, not wanting to stand out, wanting to be part of the crowd. You will then get the ones who stride with self-conscious attitude up to the top seats, wanting to appear aloof and interesting. Often this is their first chance to express themselves fully, school having attempted to uniform them. They fiddle with new piercings and blink through oversized fringes defiantly. Then there are the students two rows back from the front. These are the bright and slightly twitchy ones. They are twitchy because throughout their school career they have had to perservere under constant teasing and bullying for their lack of sartorial suss and their over-abundance of brains. Finally, they have found a place of shelter and a posse of their own. It takes them a while to settle into the notion of having intellectual equals but soon they are forming Maths clubs together.
It is, however, in the very front row that you find the most nervous students. These are the mature students; newly and awkwardly attired in “young clothes”. Women and men in their late thirties onwards, some who have returned to college, others who have braved this institution for the first time. They are all very nervous, shy, enthusiastic and wondering how the hell they are going to combine full-time study with the rest of their hectic messy lives. Many of them have never taken lecture notes before, most of them only have hazy horrified memories of exams. Nearly all of them will be writing their essays on the corner of a kitchen table while children, husbands or wives demand attention. While the other students find the size and social throng of third level challenging, they at least have fresh experience of listening, writing and being assessed. For mature students having a pint is no longer thrilling but doing a presentation is knee-numbing.
Having watched these eager and confused faces in front of us, we at West Cork College have decided that perhaps a little reassurance might help. To that end we are offering a College for Mature Students option in our Skibbereen Autumn Classes. From 4pm – 6pm every Monday for 8 weeks from 23rd September, we’ll be advising prospective mature students on grants, applications, how to take lecture notes, essay writing, exam strategies and all the other methods of academic survival. It’s €80 for the 8 weeks, and if you’re interested click here. We were once mature students so we do understand the horror, the thrills and the occasional hangover.