After newly admitted Health Promotion student Jade Kelly started her first day of classes back in January, her oldest son asked her if she’d met any friends.
“I laughed and told him I didn't but university is a bit different from elementary school and I'm just there to learn,” she said.”
Jade started in January with classes in Anatomy, Neurology, Psychology and Sociology. Though she came to university with a program in mind, as a mature student she needed to complete a semester of classes before she could apply to a major. After being out of school for 10 years, she was a bit uncertain about how she’d fit in among her fresh-from-high-school classmates.
“I put my hair in pigtails and wore a Dal hoodie on the first day,” she says, laughing. “But when I walked into the auditorium — and fortunately someone did tell me there would be hundreds of people, so I was kind of prepared — I looked around and saw the students were from all walks of life and I realized I'm not the only one on this journey.”
Making adjustments
Of course, trying to blend in was the least of her concerns. In addition to being a mother to two young children, Jade runs her own business. It takes careful scheduling to juggle all of her responsibilities.
“In January, I sacrificed six hours of my work schedule and I closed my business to new clients to make it work,” she explains. “In September, I'll only have to lose about four hours of work. I’ll work three twelve hour days and then I'm off Sunday, Monday and Tuesday so most of my courses are on Monday and Tuesday.”
She’s also excited for September because both her kids will be in elementary school allowing her more time on campus.
“It is a lot but I'm doing okay — I'm passing!” she says with a grin.
A learning experience
As a mature student, Jade feels she’s far more organized than she would have been at a younger age. She admits, though, that university has taken some getting used to.
“The amount of work and the pace of it was a bit surprising,” she says. “After the first few days and after the first midterm I realized, okay, there's no procrastination here. You just need to do things and do them well. It was a learning experience to understand what profs want and to figure out what I need to do to succeed.”
Now that she’s been accepted into Health Promotion, Jade is looking forward to channeling her efforts into a major. Fortunately, she planned carefully so she’ll be able to apply the courses she’s already taken to her new program.
Healthy goals
Jade’s decision to enrol in university, after ten years working as an esthetician, comes from her desire to use her skills to help people heal and find comfort. She’s learned that to do that she needs to go beyond her current credentials. “We do go through extensive training to become an esthetician but that’s not really recognized,” she says.
As an example, Jade points to her experience at a pedicure course she took with nurses in Toronto. “Everyone else who took that course could bill Blue Cross for pedicures afterward but though I could do all the pedicures and was trained with foot care nurses, I wasn’t able to because I was ‘just an esthetician.’”
While that course sparked her interest in the health care side of her business, the thing that made her decide to take action was seeing firsthand how she could change someone’s life.
“I have a client who has neuroma in her feet, so she has no feeling, and I'm the best thing that's ever happened to her,” Jade says. “Every time I come in she's so thankful for what I do for her. That's what I want. I don't just want to do a glitter on a nail or a paint on a nail, I really want to make a difference and impact people.”
From someday to now
Initially, Jade had planned to work toward becoming a naturopathic doctor but the limited availability of training (there are only two naturopathic schools in Canada) has made her question whether it’s a realistic goal. With that in mind, she’s started looking at Nursing.
“I thought Nursing might be a better choice because I could work that into the industry I'm already in — by shifting to clinical foot care, for example.”
Wherever her education takes her, Jade is glad she didn’t put it off waiting for the perfect time. She says any prospective mature students thinking about what they could do with a degree should just do it.
“You can make it work. It's hard. It's not easy. But if it’s your dream, you don’t want to wait another 10 years and wish you did it earlier.”