This week I got to go to the “big boy school” aka Texas A&M San Antonio. The maturity level did seem to be a bit higher than the junior college where I got my AA. I am not sure if there is that much of a leap between 20 & 21 years of age or it's just the type of student that moves on to an upper level university.

Many of students at the JC seemed one step removed from juvenile hall. They were often late to class, if they even showed up. The youngsters seemed to always be scrambling at the last minute to complete assignments we had for weeks. Then inevitably a few would be begging the instructor for more time and they always had some lame excuse...if all the family members of these students had died as they claimed, the local population would have decreased by at least 20%.


The JC seemed more like an extension of high school than a college campus. There were chatty little gossip groups, students more worried about how they looked than what was being discussed in class. In a lit class I took, most of the students had a habit of not doing the weekly readings. In a class with 20 students there were only 3-4 of us who actually did the readings, so instead of having a lively discussion about a good piece of literature we would sit in class and take turns reading what should have been homework. It was like being back in elementary school with each student reading a paragraph. I often felt sorry for the instructor, who was nice lady, that was working on her doctorate in english while supporting herself by teaching at the JC. That of course was when I wasn’t suppressing the urge to beat my classmates in the head with our text book for not doing the reading. I actually had one classmate claim that he didn’t have time to read nine pages in the week since assigned....NINE FREAKING PAGES, and he didn’t have time. He could have read nine pages while waiting for his video game to load or while waiting for pizza to arrive. I wanted to slap the crap out of him just for being a moron. I see a long career in minimum wage jobs for that young person.


Another stark difference is the cars the students drive. Seems like an unrelated item when comparing the quality of students at two institutions but there is an underlying truth. At the JC there were many nice cars: BMW, Mercedes, Cadillac etc, while I don’t think I have noticed a single luxury car in the lot of TAMSA. The cars at TAMSA are a wide variety of “average joe” cars. Cars that belong to hard working people who are trying to do better. When you see a college parking lot with expensive cars, you can presume that there are some spoiled rich kids wasting their parents money. That is not to make the conclusion that all of them are wasting but having witnessed enough of them in their designer clothes texting in class and failing tests I would bet I am right more often than I am wrong.


The first week at TAMSA was so different. The classes were quiet when the instructor walked in and everyone was attentive and focused. Everyone in the classes seemed so intent, like what they were doing actually meant something, that they were serious about getting an education and making a good life for themselves. Some were younger, typical college age and others where like me, starting over and working toward a second career. I would bet that most of them are putting them self through school which kind of proves the old saying about how something means more if you earn it.


The work load has gone up, the classes are more serious since they relate directly to my degree and it is going to be a long semester but it will be an improvement. I am delving into childhood development, literature in schools, exceptional students and english language learners and it’s going to be great.


I do have one class I am taking still at the JC but it’s with an uber-cool teacher who could make watching paint dry interesting, so putting up with the silliness will be ok.