This article first appeared on North Country Public Radio.
Some 36 million adults have taken some college classes but have no degree. The idea of returning to school and sitting in a desk with a roomful of teenagers can feel intimidating.
This Sunday, Marc Isaacs will walk across the stage at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y. and collect his college diploma — 33 years after he took his first class.
Isaacs, who works for Native American Community Services in Buffalo, didn't just take a class at a time. He dove in. He moved to Pyrites, outside Canton, for the spring semester to study full-time and finish his Bachelor's in Performance and Communication Arts.
Isaacs is 55 years old. He grew up in Lisbon in St. Lawrence County. He told David Sommerstein of North Country Public Radio the incomplete studies had been hanging over his head. Their conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
MARC ISAACS: There was something just unfinished about it. It made me feel like I had to avoid thinking or talking about it. I had to dance around the subject with a lot of people, and it made me feel like I was basically removing a big chunk of an early part of my life, my formative years, and having to avoid it.
DAVID SOMMERSTEIN: So you went full bore. You moved back up to Canton, just outside of Canton, for the semester. You have one semester to finish your bachelor's degree that began in 1989. What was it like to walk into a classroom with a bunch of 18- to 21-year-olds?
ISAACS: The very first day, my very first professor said that we're all seniors in this class, some more senior than others. And it landed on me. I thought to myself, "Yeah, I'm not one of these kids."
I don't have to shape myself into being one of them. I consider myself a parent peer where I'm their parents' age, but I'm their peer academic. I don't have to have the same social relationship, but I do have to be mindful that we're all in this together.
There's a lot I can share of my lived experience that they're not going to have at twenty-two. There are things I've done that tie into the coursework that I can talk about and illuminate certain things for them, and they can illuminate the Gen Z version of that for me.
SOMMERSTEIN: I was going to ask you, what do you learn from them?
ISAACS: Well, I learned some of their [Gen Z] language. But I'm also learning about the fact that they're apprehensive about what comes next. A lot of them don't know how they're going to navigate the professional world. At the same time, I'm getting a sense that a lot of this generation, at least on this campus, is specifically choosing a study that corresponds with how they're going to make an income. So they're not just jumping into a major. They're calculating what is that major going to get me when I leave here. That's even probably more intimidating than it was for me at twenty-two.
SOMMERSTEIN: Is it intimidating for you, walking into a room with a bunch of Gen Zers, being at the campus center, and things like that?
ISAACS: It's only intimidating when I start to recognize people are tracking me. Like, when I see someone glance over and then break eye contact. I know they're aware that there's this older dude on campus who's not a teacher, who's not faculty or staff member, but who's in their classes. That's kind of intimidating for me. But for the most part, most of them just kind of go about their business and ignore me.
SOMMERSTEIN: What's been something that has surprised you about this experience so far?
ISAACS: I think one of the things that surprised me is how much I like learning. For the last several decades, I thought of St. Lawrence and college as a place I just didn't enjoy. I didn't fit in. I just struggled with the education, the academics of it. Now I've come back, and I actually do like learning. I'm in a place in my life where I want to consume more. I want to do the extra work, I want to do the research, I want to make the connections. I never would have guessed that coming back. I was just thinking about the endgame, right? Just getting the degree. I didn't realize that I actually love being a student.
SOMMERSTEIN: Are you involved in extra-curricular activities, like clubs and groups and stuff like that?
ISAACS: I have a couple of clubs I'm part of. One is the Native American Student Alliance, which we just met for the first time this week, and we're going to do some activities on campus. The other big activity I'm doing is a production of "The Minutes" by Tracy Letts. I'm playing the mayor of a small town called Big Cherry that has a very dark past. There's one other guy who's actually older than me playing one of the town council people. The rest are traditional college students. And so there's now at least a couple of older guys in that cast, and that makes me feel a little bit more comfortable.
SOMMERSTEIN: How do you think this experience is going to change you?
ISAACS: It's already changing me. I came back here just to get my B.A., and even without getting my degree done yet, I'm already thinking ahead to what's next. So I'm considering getting a master's in indigenous studies at a place like the University at Buffalo. So I've started thinking of myself as a student now, and now if I'm a student for life, there's got to be a next step, and maybe that next step is my M.A.
SOMMERSTEIN: It's worth noting you're part Mohawk.
ISAACS: I am. I'm Tyendinaga Mohawk. Unlike the Akwesasne Mohawks, my family has roots in Ontario at Tyendinaga and also at Six Nations. My grandparents were residential school survivors who were at the Mohawk Institute a century ago.
SOMMERSTEIN: So, you contacted me wanting to talk about this, wanting to tell your story. Who do you want to tell that story to, and why did you feel compelled to contact me?
ISAACS: I grew up in the North Country. I grew up around a lot of people who had difficulty professionally, even academically. Maybe they didn't go to college, maybe they dropped out of college and struggled later on with how to reinvent themselves. Industry comes and goes, jobs come and go, opportunities come and go, and you might be somebody who's forty or fifty years old now, and you don't know what to do next.
It's OK to reinvent yourself. It's OK to take a class at a college. It's OK to dabble in some new type of hobby that helps you open up a way to see yourself differently. And if it's education, if it's going to college, even one class could be instrumental in reshaping, re-authoring how you tell your own story.
