What is Driving Me?

I think I expected to be surrounded by a bunch of 18 and 19-year-olds who would look at me with curiosity, wondering what I was doing there. When I decided to return to school to earn my liberal arts degree from the University of Richmond, I thought I was the exception.

Fortunately, I quickly discovered this was not the case. As I went from class to class, I noticed that around half the students were working adults who were biting the bullet and "going back to school."


I found found inspiration and encouragement from this. While I haven't interacted with many students (because I just haven't had the time to make much of a social thing out of it), there are three young ladies on my biology lab team that have made the whole experience a little easier.

For starters, they are all smart. Valerie, Joyce, Jordan, and I have made a pretty good team in our lab, because we all contribute, and we don't leave any one on the team behind. But there is another, less tangible reason they have helped me. All three of them are working adults who have returned to school to earn bachelors degrees. But while they would be ok to merely pass, they don't. They make straight A's. They are driven, as am I. What is it? Why do I NEED to make A's? I never had that determination in high school! Why now? B's and C's bring home the diploma too!


After talking with Valerie, Joyce, and Jordan, I realize what this is really about: proving something. But to whom? That answer came from my teammates as well: ourselves!


I think they are right. Oh, I have all my other reasons for working on my degree...make me more effective on my job, make me more marketable for other things, etc. But when it comes down to it, I am really doing this to prove to myself that I could have all along. There's a sense of shortcoming that I have carried with me throughout a number of my adult years. I experienced the same feeling about my failure to complete my back belt degree in martial arts. I left my training as a teen, and always felt the need to finish it one day. Four years ago, I did just that. I'm a little better prepared to defend myself against a dark-alley attacker now, but more importantly, I finished what I started. I completed something most people never achieve.


Chatting one evening with Valerie and Joyce during a lecture break, I shouldn't have been surprised to hear them say that they weren't necessarily planning career changes, but they wanted options. The degree provides more options. Part of me wishes I had done this when I was 18. But I think I will get more out of it now. I know how to make A's now, I know how to learn now, and I know what I want to be when I grow up!