Why I’m Going Back to College After All These Years

By Gretchen McIntire
Photo by GhoZt Studioz Photography

I am doing something that feels awfully brave for me right now. I’m finally looking into going to college after all of these years. I’m doing some research as I’m taking a certification course to become a Certified Home Health Aide at Quincy College after work. All of this feels really big. Let me explain why.

“For so many years I threw the idea of college out the window after withdrawing from night school before I even started. I felt bombarded by people telling me that I couldn’t achieve my goals.“

I was discouraged from trying to get into school for various reasons including my disability. I became extremely fearful of failure. So, I gave up. I withdrew and didn’t look back. But I’m not the same woman anymore!

I feel so inspired to simply take that step forward now. Small steps at a time. To stop worrying and just go for it. This feels bigger than my trip to Manila did but it’s going to require a lot of lost sleep and patience with myself. My ASD sometimes makes me want to rush to get everything done because I’m afraid of falling behind. One of my greatest lessons in grace is “pace” as I’ve learned from bumping into walls.

But I look at the course I’m taking right now at Quincy College and I’m excited to do more. When I was waiting for my pathology results from my breast mass biopsies, I made a promise to myself and to the world that if they came back benign, I would find a way to dedicate some of my life to breast cancer awareness.

When the results were in both times and each came back as a benign tumor called a fibroadenoma, I was elated but I didn’t know how I could give back and now I have some secrets up my sleeve that go along with this plan of being brave.

Those who have been following this journey will be the first to know when I have bigger news. But for now, I’m focusing on getting my certification course finished and another secret thing or two that I will fill you in on in my next article.

Have you ever had a dream of going back to school? Or have you wanted to take a class on something new? Why not try? I’m finding Coursera and edX to be very exciting as a means of learning lots of different things without the traditional costs of school. Why not give it a go? Try something new with me?

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