The 32 Year Old Freshman

"The only thing standing in the way of my learning is my education." - Some guy somewhere that probably wasn't Albert Einstein.

    I mean Einstein probably said it at some point but aren't all quote attributions prior to the internet age apocryphal?  I had originally intended to dub this blog The 40 Year Old Graduate but when I googled the name there were already a few blogs or articles of that ilk.  Oh why oh why can't I ever have one truly original idea?  They were good reads. If you have been thinking about returning to college as a 30+ year old (or going for the first time) then I highly recommend that you check them out here:
From a 40 Year Old Student - It's Never Too Late for College (yahoo.com)
the 40-year-old grad student (wordpress.com)
The 40 Year Old Grad Student (Tootzypop.com)

    What this blog will be about is me so all of you cynics out there know this,  you are justified.  I honestly hope that I can use this space to help people who, like me, were a little bit intimated by college upon leaving high school. Hopefully I can convey what it's like to go to college in this age and at a somewhat older age.  I will try to keep the me talk to a minimum.  My vision is to sprinkle in tidbits about how I got here while sharing some interesting things that I have learned and some tools that helped me learn.

    First things first (or 3rd or whichever paragraph this is), I applied and registered for classes at Sussex County Community College recently.  The process was surprisingly more easy than I had anticipated.  I have applied for financial aid and it appears that I have gotten some in the form of a Pell Grant.  Pell Grants are usually awarded to those who haven't earned a bachelor's degree yet.  Just fill out a FAFSA(Free Application for Student Aid) and you can get the ball rolling to see if you qualify.  It was quite easy to do online although I had a bit of an issue and had to mail in a printed application because I apparently had a PIN already from 2003 when I was pondering the attendance of County College of Morris for a Criminal Justice degree.  I was (I guess I still am judging by my DVD collection) a huge X-Files fan and loved the first seasons of CSI so I thought forensic science and detective work was the coolest thing ever at the time.  It's still pretty freakin' cool!

    My first semester of my freshman year will begin in September and I am a little disappointed with the courses that I will be taking.

    I am pursuing an A.S. in Mathematics and I only get to take ONE math class?  Furthermore, I should be sufficiently primed for Calculus I, with my experience from coursera MOOCs, KhanAcademy, and Computer Science with CodeAcademy (Much more on these in future posts), so this first semester appears to be a formality.
    Despite this, it is exciting to finally be going to college. However, I feel like I've been given the keys to the car but I'm not allowed to drive it yet.  More than that, it's like I'm in the car, ready to go and there is massive construction taking place right in front of my driveway.  Hmmm, if only there was another way for me to learn...  To the cloud!