(uplifting music) - College isn't just for 18 year olds, fresh out of high school anymore.

Today, classrooms are filled with working parents, career changers, and military veterans.

We're diving into the world of non-traditional students on this episode of "Inspire."

(electricity hissing) (bright music) - [Announcer] "Inspire" is sponsored by the estate of Ray and Ann Goldsmith, the Raymond C. and Marguerite Gibson Foundation, and the Lewis H. Humphreys Charitable Trust.

(uplifting music) (uplifting music continues) - Hello and welcome to "Inspire," and I'm so excited to be here with my awesome Inspire sisters, Betty Lou Pardue and Amy Kelly.

It's always a joy to be with you on the show.

The percentage of adult learners attending college full-time is increasing today.

Classrooms are filled with a variety of people, including working parents, career changers, and military veterans, just to name a few.

- So what's it like to go to college later in life?

What's a typical work life balance like for a non-traditional student?

- Today we're diving into the world of non-traditional students with some help from our guests, Leah Brown, interim director of admissions at Washburn University, and Linda Tuller, a non-traditional student auditing classes at Washburn.

Thank you both for joining us today here at Inspire.

Okay, let's start out, Linda, you are a non-traditional student.

Tell us what is a non-traditional student?

- Oh, my.

(group laughing) Someone who isn't 18 to 22.

(group laughing) That certainly is what I was when I attended school during the eighties while my daughters were going to college.

And then I did finally get a degree in 1990 and couldn't wait till I retired so I could become that auditor that you mentioned.

- And Washburn has a great system for auditors.

Leah, please explain that.

- Yeah, so we have our program, 60 and over auditing.

So the Friday before the semester starts, you are invited to come onto campus and you can enroll in a variety of classes.

So we do reserve it for that Friday before classes start so that those enrolling in credit can fill up seats.

And then those classes that still have seats available, auditors can join.

So it's kind of selective courses.

It varies semester to semester.

- You seem to have a certain passion for auditing.

How many classes have you taken so far?

- Well, 25.

And that doesn't count the aqua exercise class that I take almost every since.

- Nice, I didn't even know there was one.

(group laughing) - So what types of classes interest you, Linda?

So if you just pick anything off out of the book that you can take, are you concentrating in anything in particular?

- Well, I'm kind of the social sciences type, so I've taken a lot of political science classes as well as history classes, sociology, ethics, leadership, those kinds of things, as well as aqua exercise.

(group laughing) - What has it done for you though?

Do you feel like it's given you some incentive to keep learning of course and expanding your interest maybe?

- The primary reason I go is to have something on my schedule.

Because I find that I do better if I have an ordered life, but I chose auditing classes because I want to rub elbows with the students.

- And why is that important?

- I don't know.

(group laughing) - The youth, I mean, don't you?

Because I did the same thing.

And I love the fact that, you know, you got all these young people, and they were, they had different ideas and refreshing and you just were energized by 'em.

- I am energized by them, and I want to get to know them.

And I have became acquainted with a number of students that I've stayed in touch with as a matter of fact.

I also then was on a study abroad trip with a group of students.

I've been invited to a wedding.

I went to a graduation party.

I mean, it's been really, really wonderful.

I also have stayed in touch with some on LinkedIn and followed their careers.

- Wow.

- Awesome.

- Well, now Leah, I'm sure that not everybody has Linda's enthusiasm when it comes to going back to a traditional college setting.

Tell me about some of the trepidations that some of the 60 and overs might have in terms of going to Washburn, either to audit or to actually get maybe their bachelor's or another degree.

- So some of the concerns they may have is new technology, coming into the classroom.

You know, will everyone know how to use the technology, and I don't, who will be able to help me with that, but I think students will be able to help you with that.

But then our professors too.

They understand that their classroom is filled with students from all walks of life.

So they offer that additional support, and then just how long they've been out.

You know, can I get old transcripts?

Can I get, you know, all the information that's needed.

And so in my office, the first point, we have recruitment counselors that work with them.

So they are paired to that specific population.

So if we see that someone is applying, and they're over the age of 22, they're assigned to those two dedicated recruiters.

- So they have someone to walk them through the process the entire time or the entire length of their time here at Washburn?

- Yes, that's correct.

So you start off in admissions, you submit that application, you have your admissions recruiter that walks you through what materials you need.

So we constantly check in and say, hey, you still have this transcript missing.

And then we then make a handoff to academic advising.

And they have advisors that work with returning and adult learners as well.

So they'll advise them on that degree path, And then once you get so far into your degree, you're then set up with an academic advisor in your department of choice.

- Wonderful.

- Yeah.

- So is it possible to earn a degree as an auditor?

- Not as an auditor.

- Okay.

Okay.

You'd have to actually enroll to do that?

So my question actually is, from an outside perspective, looking at it, what do you see as the benefits of combining non-traditional students with traditional students?

- Yes, so I've had been fortunate enough to teach WU 101, and I've had some non-traditional students in my classroom.

And so sometimes, you know, I'm there, I'm teaching, and they're listening to me and they're like, well, yes, you're the professor, you have to say this.

But sometimes hearing it from someone that's in their auditing that has walked through that in a different stage of light, sometimes they'll hear that message and it might click a little bit more for them.

So it's really beneficial to have them in that classroom.

And sometimes others might be afraid to, well, maybe I shouldn't ask this, but if they see that someone who's a little bit older, has gone through life is still asking these questions, that then frees them up to say, okay, well I can ask my question too.

I'll feel confident enough to ask.

- Do you know I went back for my masters.

So I, you know, was a paying student, but I have always wanted to audit.

So did you experience any of that with the students speaking to you and asking you for your opinions and advice when you went back as an auditor?

- Oh, those students don't usually ask us advice.

(group laughing) It's more the other way around in terms of technology.

And that's one of the things that I should mention.

Auditors are not required to read the book, to attend class every day, to turn in the assignments, you know, to follow the class schedule on D2L, which the students are required to do.

So we can participate as much as we want or as little as we want.

So, so that, you know, gives us some comfort level in terms of whether or not we know how to do whatever.

- Okay, and the D2L is desire to learn for those.

- Yeah.

- Okay, go ahead.

- Thank you for that.

Because I wanna know what WU 101.

Because I'm like, we're saying these acronyms.

I'm like, okay, let's back it up.

What is WU 101?

- So WU 101 is a freshman experience class.

So if you come into Washburn, and you haven't attended college before, all of our direct from high school students take it.

But then also if you are over 21, and you haven't attended college as well, you enroll in that class.

We have certain sections that are for the adult learner, or you can enroll in any section that you want.

The one that I taught at that time, I was in the school of nursing.

So it was a nursing and helping profession focused.

- And the WU is W-U for Washburn University?

- It's not W-O-O.

(group laughing) - It could be.

(group laughing) - I had no idea.

- So if you had advice for someone interested both of you, advice for someone interested who is a non-traditional student, somebody over 60 wanting to go back to Washburn, what should they do?

- So first you'll want to go onto our website and fill out a non-degree seeking application, and then we will communicate to you the day for enrollment.

So we do break it down by last name as well.

So we'll give you the exact time, the exact day, where to show up to enroll in those classes.

- Do you have advice for anyone who's interested in doing this?

- Well, I would suggest that they look at the catalog to get an idea of, yeah, what's being offered that semester and show up early because there's a lot of auditors that are looking to get into the classes that they want.

So sometimes there's a little competition going on.

- Oh, wow.

- Yes.

- Helping people way outta my way.

- Well, Linda, thank you for sharing your story with us, and good luck as you continue your educational journey, because going back to college isn't just about books and degrees and for many non-traditional students is the start of a brand new chapter.

We're going to learn more about this next guest in just a moment.

So please stay with us.

(uplifting music) (playful music) - Hi, I'm Deborah Smith, Dr. Smith, or professor at University of Kansas.

I do both teaching and research.

I came here in '91 actually, and hired into the entomology department.

And ever since then, been teaching and doing research on both spiders and honeybees.

Well, my main interest with spiders is actually something most people have never thought about except maybe in nightmares, social spiders.

So spiders that live in large groups and work together to capture prey.

It's obviously fascinating because you have predators living together in very close proximity and working with each other.

And although people do think about it with things like lions or, you know, other big cat predators or wolves, they're kind of shocked to find out that there's spiders that do a lot of the same things.

So they spin one web, one big web that everybody uses and take care of each other's offspring, share food.

So it's a very congenial arrangement.

(playful music) I think I was looking at a bit of a spider phobia that I wanted to get over.

So as an undergraduate, I had a job working in an entomology department, and we were working on insects in alfalfa, which was not as exciting as it as you might think.

And I had a job counting all the eggs of alfalfa weevils and all the larvae of alfalfa weevils and all the adult alfalfa weevils and all the parasites of alfalfa weevils.

And after a year or two of counting weevil eggs, they said, you know, no one's ever looked at the spiders and would someone like to do those?

And I said, I will do that, I will do that.

(playful music) I can't think of when I didn't actually.

No, that was always my favorite reading from, I mean, of course, dinosaurs as a kid, and just reading a lot about geology and archeology.

And I don't think there was a choice.

I mean, I think I just sort of always felt that's what I wanted to do.

(playful music) Well, when you start looking closely at anything, you start to appreciate it more.

And I, this actually hit me more because I didn't know a lot about plants.

And while I was in college, and we would drive back and forth from home to college every year and go by these big fields of weeds, plants.

And then I took some time to learn a little bit about botany, identifying plants, and suddenly, oh my God, look at all the stuff that's there, you know?

And in a way, if you don't have a name for it, you hardly notice it.

And then when you do that, when you go out and start looking at insects or spiders and really recognizing how to tell them apart and the diversity there, it's like a whole world has opened up that you didn't even see around you before.

(playful music) (upbeat music) - Returning to school later in life can be one of the most empowering moves someone can make.

Today we're talking to students who've taken that brave leap.

Were joined now by Valerie Peckham, adjunct faculty in psychology at Washburn University.

She was a non-traditional student at first at Washburn and Leah Brown, interim director of admissions at Washburn University.

And we're so glad you're here.

This is so exciting.

Tell us how you made that leap, if you would, from a student and on into faculty.

And just keep going, please.

- Okay, sure.

Well, I decided to go back to school ages ago.

Just wanted to make a career change.

I actually had felt a calling to psychology in my twenties when I was getting my first degree, but did not pursue it at the time.

And so that I heard that calling again in my thirties and decided to answer it at that time.

And I lived in Lawrence at the time and was shopping around to different universities, and Washburn was on my list.

And so I contacted the department and spoke with the chair of the department who invited me in and gave me an overview of what it would look like if I were to return to school.

So I did, and got my bachelor's in psychology and a master's in psychology here at Washburn.

- Wow.

- Way to go.

- Congratulations.

- Excellent.

- Thank you, and really enjoyed it.

And my previous degree was in teaching, was an education degree, and so I like to teach.

And then of course there's the psychology thing.

So eventually after I graduated with my master's and was secure in a clinical position, I reached out and asked if I could begin adjunct teaching.

And so I began adjunct teaching at Washburn, I think in maybe 2013.

And then have been teaching on and off as an adjunct at Washburn ever since then.

- Wow, impressive.

- Thank you.

So tell us, 'cause some of our viewers may be like, this sounds like an ideal concept to go back to school after so many years.

However, in common, I got kids, I've got a job, I got a dog.

How are we fitting all this together?

Can you give us like that whole work life balance formula?

- Right, well, at the time I was devotee of the Franklin Covey Planner.

- I love them.

- So time and task management are key to being able to fit in everything that you wanna fit into your life.

And so I just was very careful about planning out where I needed to be at what time and the tasks that I needed to do and the time that I needed to do them.

And then I like to say, plan your work and work your time, work your plan, plan your work and work your plan.

And so that's really how I did that.

So, yeah.

- So what does it look like to do that in your thirties to go back to school?

I mean, you, you were there, you were with Washburn students who were more traditional.

Were you the oldest one in class?

Did it feel weird.

- I was.

- Or were there people auditing those classes that were like, oh, wow.

- No, I was the oldest one in class, and it was okay.

You know, so I probably had 10 to 15 years on the other students in the class, but we're there for the same purpose.

So we have something in common, which is seeking that degree.

And of course we're have the common interest of psychology.

And so it, I thought, I felt it, I felt like it was pretty natural for me.

I'm easy to get along with people and can talk to, and we're all, you know, interested in psychology.

So we all like to talk to people and learn about each other.

- And ask questions - And figure them out.

(group laughing) - So it's okay.

- Yeah, Leah, Washburn is well known for reaching out for non-traditional students.

Can you say why that is and how successful it's been?

- I think because of our location, being located in the capital city, when people, if they've attended college and droopped out or if they've never attended college before, once they start thinking, they say, oh, well, Washburn's right here.

We can work around your schedule.

We can work with you to get you in.

So I think they just kind of say, well, Washburn's been here and in the community, let me reach out to them and see how I can return to school.

- And a big success rate.

- Yes.

- Will you explain a little bit more about that?

I mean, the number of students is impressive.

- So when you apply to Washburn, you are paired up with an admissions recruiter.

So when your application comes in and you answer a few questions that determines what student type you are.

So we have adult learners and transfer students.

So an adult learner wouldn't previously have any college necessary.

You could have maybe stopped out for several years, but we kind of look at an adult learner around that age of 22 and older.

So then we work with you, we call you and we kind of say, you know, what are you thinking about?

Are you looking at coming back for a full different degree or did you stop out at maybe 15 credit hours?

So now you're kind of starting that journey over.

We'll look at your transfer credit so you're not starting over again.

And then we will work with, if you have military credits, we'll do credit for prior learning for that as well.

And so then once you're fully admitted, you then are paired up with an academic advisor.

So they work with you to enroll in your classes.

So you meet with them every semester before you enroll.

So they'll know, okay, if you work at this time, let's work around that.

Let's see what online options we have, evening classes.

So they'll help you work that and manage your time to get in the best fit classes for you.

- So I wanna ask you a question.

You said you had a number of colleges that you were looking at at the time that you were considering coming back to school.

Why Washburn?

What was so attractive about it that it drew you to it?

- Well, honestly it was, so I was, I was shopping around for different colleges and had spoken with psychology departments at a few different universities, but the Washburn chair of the department was very welcoming, invited me to come to his office and have a meeting with him and gave me directions on how to find it and everything.

(group laughing) And was just very, very welcoming.

A couple of the other schools that I had spoken with were a bit discouraging.

Just, you know, we have a really competitive program, and you're never gonna be able to make it in and just.

- Oh my gosh.

- But that was not my experience at Washburn.

The experience at Washburn was, I mean, welcoming and encouraging.

And I couldn't have asked for anything better.

I mean, especially, you're right about coming back to school.

I was in my late thirties, and I had to take the GRE and you know, I mean I hadn't done math in, you know, 15 years at least.

And it was tough, it was tough to, you know, am I still smart enough?

Can I still do this?

But to face that kind of encouragement and, you know, we want you, we welcome you.

Please come, come and attend here.

- So what are some of the challenges of being a non-traditional degree-seeking student and a non-traditional non-degree-seeking student?

- So you had mentioned the GRE and having to take that.

We have removed that requirement.

We have looked at kind of, you know, the success rate in being in your graduate program and taking that test.

And we found no real correlation.

So we said, let's remove that barrier.

So we're always looking at our processes to see what barriers we can remove for our students.

Those that start off non-degree seeking, they may be a little unsure if they want to return.

So we'll say, well, come back as non-degree seeking.

You'll take this one class, see how that goes.

If you enjoy it, if it works in your schedule, let's switch you over to degree seeking and get you on that pathway to your degree.

So we look at adult learners that are coming for their first undergraduate degree, but also returning to take your master's and finish that program.

- And you were going to answer that as a degree-seeking student.

- Ask me the question again.

- What are some of the challenges?

What are that you faced in being a non-traditional degree-seeking student?

- What I think, so one of, so when I came back to school, my first degree, we didn't have any of the online learning platforms.

And so that was one of the things that was new for me, was the online learning platform.

I had never encountered any of that before.

And another thing that I think maybe potentially, just from an instructor standpoint now, for older students or returning students that didn't have this experience before is, there's a lot of media that's online now.

Like the online textbooks and things like that.

Like I'm a paper reader, I wanna read off of paper.

And, but a lot of the textbooks now are online.

So that's one potential, like nowadays, that I could see would be particularly challenging is the online only content.

(upbeat music) - Valerie and Leah, thank you very much for joining us on "Inspire" and showing us that it's never too late to chase our educational dreams.

Coming up, we have a few thoughts to share with you, so please stay with us.

(upbeat music) - We learned so much today about the joys and the challenges of being a non-traditional student.

What were some of your takeaways from today's topic?

- I absolutely loved it.

(group laughing) 'Cause I wasn't that, you know, it took me 10 years to get through myself the first time.

And it's not because I was not quite that intelligent, although that could have played a part.

But I had to pay my own way.

So it took me 10 years of working and getting way through.

And so then I thought, I wanna get a master's.

So then's when I went back and it like so much had changed.

I mean, they were talking about the online learning.

I actually loved my online learning, and the professors, you know, everybody would get back in touch with you.

And then to be in there with all the young people, and they taught me some things about technology, which I appreciated.

- [Amy] So were a non-traditional student.

- I was, I was, and I loved it.

I did, what about you?

- I always thought I wanted to grow up to be a non-traditional student.

And I were like, who grew up to be one?

Yikes, I'm already there.

I attended Washburn back in the early eighties when the average student was about 27.

So we had a lot of age mixes within in our classes.

And I was the youngest one in some of my classes.

And I absolutely loved it.

I loved going to school with non-traditional students.

That was more normal back then.

And I absolutely loved it.

A different perspective, different life skills.

It was great.

As a traditional student, I found that very rewarding and a very different perspective from all my classes is to have that life experience involved.

So I loved it, and can't wait to do it, get to be, really get to be a non-traditional student when I stop working.

- I loved it too.

I being a traditional student had some non-trads and retreads as we called them back in the day.

And they ended up being like family to us.

And I remember Patsy and Boon in my classes, and they were just wonderful.

And we adopted Patsy kind of like our grandma in the class.

And she loved being it.

So, I mean, there was a real familial connection that I had at Wesleyan with the non-traditional students.

And now that I'm becoming closer to non-traditional, hello, I would like to do that again too.

And I have taken classes online, and I loved it.

I think that as you become non-traditional, you value the education even more.

- 100%, 100%.

- Because put your money and your time and resources into it.

And so the commitment is even stronger than when you get out of high school.

And so I love the classes I took, and I even got an A in calc, which would've never happened the first time around, but I studied my behind off.

So I mean, just the real commitment to making sure that you're on point.

- And I love the part that I, you know, when you come to college, at least for me, 'cause I had 28 in my graduating class in high school, so I was intimidated to be a regular student.

So coming back older, I felt much calmer.

- That's awesome.

- So that was good.

And I hope maybe you had a great experience.

That is all the time we have for today.

We hope you've been inspired by our conversations.

And as a reminder, you can watch this program again at watch.ktwu.org.

- And if you are so inspired to learn more about our guests, find out about what's coming up on future shows, and to get access to additional content, be sure to visit our website at ktwu.org/inspire.

- Inspiring women, inspiring all of us to go after our dreams and to live without limits.

Inspiring you on KTWU.

Thank you for watching.

(uplifting music) (uplifting music continues) - [Announcer] "Inspire" is sponsored by the estate of Ray and Ann Goldsmith, the Raymond C. and Marguerite Gibson Foundation, and the Louis H. Humphreys Charitable Trust.