The door is never really closed, by Philip Moynihan

Walking into the very first lecture of my first year, I remember feeling intensely nervous. Who would I sit next to? What if they ask me a question that I don’t know the answer to? Then I distinctly remember thinking, “For goodness’ sake you’re 26 years old, you are too old to be stressing about this sort of stuff”.

Pre-pandemic I was really struggling to form a professional identity. I was working a job purely to pay the bills and staring down 40 more years of working in a career that made me miserable. I had tried university straight out of school and had struggled balancing looking after myself with getting my work done, often getting it pretty badly wrong. So I decided to drop out because “Uni wasn’t for me” and I was right… at the time.

Uni life can be a lot when you’re young. You’re out on your own for the first time, and that is so much responsibility for an 18-year-old. I didn’t really know what I wanted to be when I left school, I don’t think anyone really does beyond vague “this would be nice” thinking. Most only attend Uni straight out of school because they feel they have to, or for a bit of a party before ‘adult life’. One massive advantage you have as a mature student is having a clearer idea of who you are, what you want out of life, and what your priorities are. Yes, I sometimes stress about balancing part-time work and coursework demands, but I know that this time I am in Uni for the right reasons. I am loving the sense of purpose this has given me; every piece of coursework I do is an opportunity to get one step closer to achieving something I genuinely care about.

The biggest mental barrier I faced when I decided to go back to Uni was the worry that it was going to be three more years of not really moving forward with my life. I would be 29 when I graduate and felt like I would be starting too late for a lot of careers, compared to the teenagers I was studying with. When I told my dad what I was planning, he gave me an amazing piece of advice. He said, “You’re going to be working for a long time Philip, what difference does a couple years actually make?”. He was totally right. When I spoke to lecturers and visiting professionals, they all outlined the varied routes they had taken to find their true calling, often only deciding much later in life. The thing they all had in common was that it took a degree of bravery to step out of their comfort zone and take a leap of faith. By coming back to Uni as a mature student you have already taken that leap. The only question left to answer, is what you are going to achieve next.