Learning to Study
-
Encouragement For Mature Students
By
Gordon Cochaud
This article was written to encourage two groups of mature aged students. The first group are
those contemplating further studies but have not got around to enrolling. The second group have
started a serious course but finding it harder
than anticipated: they are putting in the hours but
not getting the results for which they had hoped.
To the nonstarters, it is good you have at least thought about improving your situation and it is
perfectly normal that you are hesitating. Embarking upon
a course of study is moving into the
unknown especially if you did not achieve all that much when you were at school. Despite the
best efforts of many teachers, a very significant proportion of students do not achieve all they
could have at school (for a
large number of reasons that we will not go into here). So far, you are
in the majority of new returnees. Before you finish reading the article, ponder two thoughts. How
will you feel in a few years time if you do not do a course now, which you probably wo
uld have
completed? Nothing worthwhile was ever achieved without pain of some sort. Now think about
how you will feel when you complete your course.
To those who are finding the beginning of their course a bigger struggle than expected let us start
with th
e advantages mature students have over most young students. Perhaps the most significant
advantage is that of being mature: you have experienced more of the vicissitudes of life; you
have been attending the University of Hard Knocks longer and are still an
undergraduate (some
are too smart even to attend). Look around and you will notice that most people are happy
because they are in their zone of comfort. You are not like other people. You have been brave
enough to move out of your zone of comfort and step
into the unknown. Following the
excitement of doing something personal, different, learning something new is the making of a
better person
-
a new you.
Deliberately learning, broadening your knowledge and skills, is a way of proving yourself to be
better
than your perception of others' opinions of you. Why lower your self esteem by stopping
now? Now it may well be that your situation is currently at an all time low and that you really
should take a break from your course. May you steadily recover your form
er enthusiasm while
retaining your determination to finish the course.
Do not beat yourself up because you are not learning as rapidly as you had hoped. Everyone's
rate of learning varies according to the topic, to how well they are feeling and to circumst
ances.
In a technical sense, two of the parameters of learning are how much you know (prior
knowledge) and how long you can spend learning (time on task). I am not giving you two
excuses, but one does have to learn according to one's situation. Accept that
we all study from
where we are at to where we want to go. Teachers can make it harder or easier for you up to a
point; but never impossible. Your teachers do not make you
-
you, the learner, makes you into
the person you want to be.
To conclude: your teac
hers cannot make you learn
-
you learn as a consequence of choosing to
learn. As we learn we are playing catch up; yet amateur astronomers have made some