I'm 47-should I return to school?

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-07-2008
I'm 47-should I return to school?
11
Tue, 06-09-2009 - 10:16pm

I am a 47 year old attorney. I have been licensed to practice for 20 years. My DH and I have been talking about moving to Louisiana after our sons finish high school. DH is from there and I LOVE New Orleans. The problem is, the LA bar requires all attorneys to sit for their bar exam, regardless of the number of years they have practiced somewhere else. This has lead me to do soul searching. Do I want to continue to practice law or do i want to do something new? At this point, i am thinking i want to try something new. I am thinking about nursing school to become a RN. now, i don't know how i would finance this or how long the clinical work takes and how i would handle my current job when clinicals come up, but i expect to talk to someone at the school about these issues. My question is, do ya'll think i have gone off the deep end to consider, at my age, such a drastic career change?

to be honest, i get excited at the thought of a new challenge. i thought i would start off by taking a couple of courses to see if i can even make it in school now. studying, taking tests, i used to be good at it, now i don't know.

or should i be content with what i know and order the LA bar materials?

since i have known my DH (married for a year and a half) i have gone thru quadruple bypass with him 3 years ago and a motorcycle accident last year. so i have had some exposure to nurses. some wonderful and others HORRIBLE. if they can do it, why can't i, and be better than they?

am i nuts? naive? or lucky enough to see that i need a change?

thanks for reading and sharing your opinions.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 07-14-2005
Thu, 06-18-2009 - 2:03pm

I'm one of those here who returned to school & got my B.S. in 2005 in Elementary Education at the ripe old age of 52 - after about 5 prior jump starts to degrees (in other areas at different times in my life, most of which transferred into the pre-requisites for the education degree anyway). I taught jr hi math for a couple years to see if I could before I put time into taking specific subject classes. Discovered I'm good at it, passed the Arizona Middle school Math certification exam to meet Highly Qualified status, THEN went back & took upper division math courses for Secondary Math certification. Kind of a convoluted way around, but the way it had to be done here w/the way distance ed works here. Now all I have to do is pass the secondary math certification exam to be highly qualified to teach HS math. Actually here I could teach HS math f/t this year on emergency certification before I pass the Math subject exam - especially since I'm a known entity (my last two sons graduated from the HS I would teach at, 4 yrs apart, & I started subbing for them 10 years ago before I even decided to pursue a degree in education). BUT, even tho I love the teaching part & working with the kids, I get thoroughly frustrated w/our system - the combination of exhaustive expectations of public school teachers & my expectations of myself (I'm rather a perfectionist & try to not only do everything expected of me, but do it well...) - puts me into a very hi stress mode. At this point I'm opting to not teach f/t because I don't HAVE to!, & I can still work with the kids as a substitute & math tutor. I've waffled on this the last couple years when our districts contract w/teachers for the upcoming school year. I have worked w/children all my life, I did in-home licensed childcare for 15+ years while raising ours - so nothing new there - except that this time around I've paid to get a degree to get paid less in salary than I ever have in my life w/o a degree (luckily for me that really wasn't the point of it all for me!! I now always have the fallback of being a f/t math teacher if life circumstances dictate I work f/t again, or whenever I decide I'm ready to tackle it again - & there are other places that do pay quite well if it came to that....

Anyway, that said, you've gotten some very good responses already. I loved going back to school & the challenge of learning new things at this point in my life. Of course it helped that I was able to do it as a p/t student while working p/t. I've not taken more than 2 or 3 classes at a time so I could devote a good deal of time to really learning the material (not just getting a grade). Math was never my strong point & I hadn't gone past college algebra (& that was way back on my 3rd jump start in the mid-80's which was almost 15 yrs after HS Algebra, so it had been a long time for me). Plus I've managed to live a very productive full life without the use of high end mathematical concepts. But even tho I'll still never use them in my lifetime, I now have the desire to understand them so I can figure out a way to help the kids understand that they are not so mysterious and can be really useful. Our students tend to shut down in math way back at about 6th grade, about the time it becomes more than basic rote arithmetic & some actual logical thinking is required. So tho I was quite busy & definitely challenged when I took my year off f/t teaching to take my math units, I managed to complete 18 units in a years time - & that was typical college Trigonometry, Statistics, Calculus I & II, & Linear Algebra - I felt quite up to the challenge & did well, even by my own high standards.

I think the suggestion of volunteering - or finding out if you can do something & get paid for it close to the field of nursing might be helpful in making your decision if the time and $$ needed to go that direction is worth it to you in the long run. I got into subbing when it became clear my my daycare operation was not going to survive our move to rural Arizona. Subbing led to heading back to school & working on my degree - as someone mentioned, time is going to go by & you're going to hit "50" whether you take classes or not - so if it's something you want to do, why let age be a hindrance to do what you need to do to get there. I also think in service professions, like nursing or teaching, age is not necessarily a hindrance, our life experience gives us an edge to dealing w/people and being comfortable w/that rather than feeling the need to use the job as a means to "move up a professional ladder" kind of mentality. I know at this point a lot of people are looking at retirement, but my thoughts are that we do still have a lot of good years left in us & service professions like nursing are always in need of people who are good at it and comfortable with the requirements of doing it well. Plus there's a lot you could do with it in a semi-retired state as well if you choose to.

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