Up in the Air on This One

So, the latest bright shiny thing in my life is enrolling in a graduate certificate program in applied gerontology. This is different from theoretical gerontology which is what everyone who isn’t old thinks they’re experts in/on.

Anyway, my alma mater posted a notice on social media recruiting people for this program at a pretty high-status school of social work which is conveniently located two blocks from where I am sitting. The pitch was to mid-career people who wanted to hone their skills in working with older adults. The certificate program is 18 credits, six 3-credit classes which, if I am accepted and enroll, would take me until I am very near, but not quite, eighty years old.

To lessen the shock when we meet on Monday to discuss my application, I tried to drop broad hints about my age to the program director. You know, telling her that I’m retired and that my last degree was awarded in 1986, stuff like that. I told her I was fashioning a new career as an advocate for older adults and that I would benefit from deeper knowledge, but I didn’t tell her that I had a goals/ambition jones that needed to be addressed right now.

She responded by saying: It sounds like the program would be a perfect fit for you.

The prospect of going back to school has perked me up. Until I had this uncomfortable realization.

You know what happens when you go to school? People judge you. They listen to your answers in class and read your papers and they give you grades. Am I ready to get graded? In the part of my brain that is insufferably arrogant and egotistic, I hear the words, “I judge. I am not judged.” And then I slap myself and remind myself of my heartfelt commitment to humility in my golden years. Learn and ye shall be learned and all that.

I’m obviously up in the air about all this.

The program director also advised me to apply for their scholarship which, when I look at the application, requires recommendations from former professors about my academic capabilities. But alas, as one might suspect, my former professors are pontificating from the clouds. There’s no one to vouch for me, you know, scholastically speaking.

They’ll have to take my word for it. Or not.

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