Born Again Student

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Summer Wildcat Christina Livingston

I left high school ready to take on the world. I planned to study architecture and was going to be the best female architect that anyone had seen in a long time.

Entering college in New Hampshire and living on my own (well, in a dorm) for the first time in my life, I finally felt like one of the grown-ups. I could be independent and still have my parents to fall back on when I couldn't handle it by myself.

This was the ideal setup - or so I thought.

But college wasn't what I expected the first time I attended. It wasn't about you and your roommate having an instant bond that would last a lifetime, parties that lasted until Monday or cute guys walking around the dorm with nothing but a towel.

The college I went to then didn't even let me pick my own classes. I was tested and placed and their goal was to get you through as fast as possible with little fuss.

The reality was that my dorm split up the women on one side of the building and men on the other, my roommate was a spawn of the devil and parties were banned on this campus.

That left me with the only other option available - I actually had to study.

I spent one semester at that college. I couldn't tell you the first thing about wood-stress limits or a single calculus equation, but I can tell you that I was not meant to be an architect. So I gave up.

Yes, I became one of the 50 percent of freshman that drop out within the first year of college. I dropped out of school and dropped into life.

But I discovered something else disturbing - life wasn't much better. Without a job and without classes to attend, my parents thought it best that I move out on my own.

Now without a home and without money, I moved in with my then-boyfriend and now ex-husband and proceeded to attend the school of life.

When you're hungry, you take minimum wage jobs. After about half a dozen minimum wage jobs, a failed marriage and now a single mother of two, I discovered that I needed something more than a job - I needed a future for both my children and myself.

No one was going to give it to me. I had to earn a future and, after weighing my options, I made another discovery.

When I was considering going back to school, I was 24 years old. After four years of studying, I would be 28 years old when I finally graduated.

Twenty-eight years old? Where did the time go already? It was only yesterday that I left school and drove home to face my parents with the news, and now I'll be reaching 30 by the time I get the degree I should have gotten years before.

Then I thought about the fact that I had reached the age of 24 without a degree, and that if I didn't do something soon, I would reach the age of 28 without a degree. So I signed up to become an entering freshman at the UA.

It is hard to go back. It's like admitting you were wrong.

But now I'm part of the future again, and this time, I have more incentive to do it.

I have two daughters who depend on me for every basic need. They look up to me for more than just food, shelter and clothing - they need me to be their example.

Going back to college now, I have more at risk than when I went to college at 18.

I feel I should have been prepared for this family that I have now, but instead I'm starting over.

But now I have the desire. I found what it was I was meant to do, and it wasn't architecture.

One last lesson I learned through it all - age, money, children, divorce and etc. - the only true obstacle is myself.

I can find a way around or through everything life throws at me but I need to remind myself that I am the most important ingredient in a successful graduation this time because no one else is going to do this for me.

Christina Livingston is a creative writing junior. Her column, Raising Mountains, appears on alternate Wednesdays.