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Early this year, I nervously attended my first day of school. Again.

With my son’s sweet “Have a good day at school, Mom!” still playing on repeat in my head, I rushed down the wide halls of Southern Regional Technical College. I was no stranger to the place, as my husband received two degrees there over a decade ago when the school was still Moultrie Technical College.

The building looks much the same as when I had visited before, but the feeling of being a college student seemed to add special meaning and purpose to ascending the modern, curving staircase in the front lobby. Following the trail of rising classroom numbers and feeling a growing sense of anticipation, I neared the room that would be the location of my first college class since 1998.

I am 37. I stopped going to college in 1998 because I was in love with a boy who wanted to leave college for a life of service in the U.S. Army. Nothing could convince me that following him to Germany wasn’t the best plan for my life. After all, I was 19! (Everyone knows that 19-year-olds know everything.)

Several years living in Germany, two wonderful redheads, two businesses, and 19 years later, I’m still married to that same boy. I have, however, always felt the quiet loss of my college years. I feel a dull stab of regret every time I have to select “some college” for “mother’s education level” on my kids’ school forms, when people are visually shocked that to find out that I don’t have a degree, or when a potential employer tells me that that I’ve got plenty of experience, but not enough paperwork.  

At 37, I was resigned to the fact that I would not be a typical school girl. I prepared myself to be the old, out-of- place lady in all my classes. I am pretty attuned to technology, but I knew that 18-year-olds today have never known a world without computers and the Internet. College with “access codes” instead of used textbooks must seem obvious to them.  The world had changed tremendously in the intervening two decades since I left academia, and frankly, I was thoroughly intimidated.

I rounded the corner a few minutes before class was to begin and looked over my classmates for Accounting 1101: a room full of blessedly, beautifully, wonderfully grown-up women! I couldn’t help myself; I exclaimed, “Oh, thank goodness! You’re all grownups!”

We introduced ourselves, and I hid my tears of gratitude as I heard their powerful and inspiring stories. One lady was back in college for the fifth time. One woman chose to be in class because she wanted to provide a positive example for her teen-age children. Another was pregnant with twins. (Bless her!) Each woman elected to take that hard class because she was choosing to make a better life for herself.

I am so happy that I decided to make the hard choice to move my life around and go back to school. It won’t be easy, but I no longer feel like the “old lady” in school; and I now know for sure that it is never too late to start again.

SRTC offers over 148 degree, diploma, and certificate programs that are designed to get you quickly into your desired career, and 27 general education courses that transfer to the University System of Georgia institutions and 19 private colleges and universities in Georgia. SRTC has instructional sites located in Ashburn, Cairo, Camilla, Moultrie, Thomasville, Tifton, and Sylvester for the convenience of our students. The college is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC). SACSCOC is the regional body for the accreditation of degree-granting higher education institutions in the Southern states. For the most up-to-date information on registration, class dates, and program offerings, log on to www.southernregional.edu or call (888) 205 – 3449.  

Summer Semester 2017 Begins May 18th. Don’t wait, enroll today!