Originally Posted by zannie

Redefining The Professional Student

Dear Dad,

Do you remember the time, when I was 19, when I started back to college for the second time? You rolled your eyes and asked, “Are you planning on being a professional student for the rest of your life?” I got offended and said, “No, of course not!”

I never forgot it and it always had me considering that there should be more doing and less thinking. As if planning was somehow inferior to production. That perhaps I wasn’t making much of myself if I wasn’t out earning a living.

I know you meant well, Dad. You’re very successful without any sort of college education and you are very responsible with the fruits of your labor. You are one of the hardest workers I know!

It’s 10 years later, I’m 29 and you are just starting your own college career at the age of 55. I am so proud of you. It’s difficult to start college at any age, let alone in your middle-aged years. I too am still a student, a professional student, in your sense of the phrase. But I’d like to take a moment to redefine the “professional student” to you. You see, Dad, you’re a professional student too. You may not have been attending school as long as I, but my definition of a professional student encompasses much more than just collective academic years.

Being a professional student isn’t sarcasm for attending school for a long time, but a phrase that embodies so much more than just the daily grind. It’s about craving to learn more - in an academic setting or not. It’s about changing and growing and discovering. Having a childlike sense of life (not to be confused with immaturity) is the key to being a professional student. And being a professional student, Dad, isn’t a bad thing.

So many people let their lives live them instead of living their lives. In everything you do, I see your inner professional student shine. Your homework time on Sunday afternoons that you don't allow anyone to interrupt, your devotion to your career, and the never ending chores you gripe about. I see passion in every golf game in which you declare you'll never play again, in dutifully attending your classes, and building Lego houses with your only grandson, your namesake, Bruce. You live your life with gusto and that is what makes you a professional student.

Never be afraid to learn and grow Dad, and never be ashamed of having a professional student as a daughter, or of being one yourself. You have new worlds opening up to you with every class you attend at school. Embrace this new information and most of all, enjoy it!

Love,

Zannie