Tips for Adults Returning to School to Continue Their Education

Nov 2, 2010
David R. Wetzel

Tips For Adults Returning To School - Kay Garston

A proactive approach when meeting with an academic adviser is a critical when going back to school to pursue a continuing education program.

Tips for adults returning to school focus on obtaining a logical learning experience when enrolled in a continuing education program. For many adults, their goal is to improve workforce marketability from enrollment in appropriate courses or programs at a college or technical school. This process typically begins during the enrollment and continues throughout their program. Often, achievement of academic goals hinges on quality of their academic advisers.

Adult student success in any continuing education program is embedded in the quality of academic advising they receive. For many adults the ability to meet with an academic advisor is a problem all by itself. This difficulty is due to adult student work schedules and the limited hours many academic advisors are available. This is also compounded frequently meeting with more than one academic advisor and receiving inconsistent advice.

Academic Advising for Adult Students: A Story of Inconsistency

In many cases, adults going back to school in pursuit of continuing education opportunities receive unsatisfactory academic advising. A study completed by Portland Community College (Boomers Go to College, February 28, 2007) revealed academic advising for adult students was problematic because:

More than 67 percent of 1306 adults (40 and over) responding to Portland Community College institutional effectiveness survey sought guidance through academic advising. This was well beyond their expectations.

50 percent of these adult students were dissatisfied with the advising they received.

Major complaints for those dissatisfied with their advising experience included:

conflicting or vague information

inaccurate or out of date information

little or no assistance with how to succeed in meeting academic goals

a feeling of being rushed through the system and out the door, because they already know everything about attending higher education

Their study found these results were consistent with other adult student experiences during academic advising sessions in other colleges and technical schools around the country.

Factors for Success in Adult Education: Tips for Receiving Useful Advice and Information

Based on these representative results, the importance of being proactive when meeting with an academic adviser cannot be understated. The focal point of the following tips is to ensure you receive appropriate advice and information.

Ensure you know where you stand within a selected continuing education program, along with what is really needed to complete the program. Time and money are limited; wasting either on unnecessary courses must be avoided.

Insist on finding out what the realistic future holds for students’ completing your program, i.e., trends and projections for the next 10 to 20 years.

Find out the realistic benefits are for your current or potential career after completion of the program. Spending time in a program which leads to little or no career benefit is waste of valuable time and money.

Do a little background research to eliminate the chance of conflicting, inaccurate, and out of date information. Focus this research on trends and issues concerning the preferred continuing education program. Use the findings to assist in preparation of explicit questions to ask your academic advisor.

If you sense the academic advisor is wasting your time, seek another advisor. Your time is valuable, along with being a consumer of their services.

Insist on and only accept facts – not speculation. Request sources of facts, the world is changing and you need information for the future – not historical data.

Do not accept being treated like you already know everything. If this were the case you would not be seeking advice.

Ensure your adviser completely reviews prior academic work, with an eye on how this previous experience influences current academic requirements. Do not accept vague answers or innuendo. Ask for specifics and get them in writing! To ease the process you need to bring course descriptions for any previous completed academic work to ensure proper evaluation.

Although these tips for adults returning to school are academic advising focused. There are still other self-directed activities which need attention when going back to school. These include participating in study groups, setting up learning networks with others within and outside the program, and demanding support services targeted for adult student success. These actions and being proactive in academic advising meetings lead to improved workforce marketability.