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Illustration by Sarah Farquhar
In early January I returned to the university classroom – as a mature part-time student – to earn credits to complete my BA at the University of Toronto.
Being on campus and in the classroom has not been stressful. After all, I am a full-time professor at York University where I have been teaching for a quarter century.
Rather the stress comes from performance anxiety. I fear I will not do well as a student; that I no longer possess the skills to be a good student.
I worry that in my case there is truth to “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.”
The course I am enrolled in – Slavery in Latin America – is on a topic I know nothing about. I was tempted to register for a class for which I had background preparation but decided to broaden my horizons rather than hone knowledge I already have.
A conundrum of being a student again is explaining this state of affairs to family and friends. When I share the news, I am invariably greeted with “Why?”
I am questioned about the necessity to earn another BA, when I already have one (though not from the University of Toronto) and other advanced degrees. “What will you get out of this?” they ask.
There are blank stares when I express my love for classroom learning and the pleasure that comes from being a student.
These days I mostly ascribe my student life to a mid-life crisis and to having no hobbies. Truth be told, for more than half-century there has not been a year during which I was not a student or a teacher.
My wife is relieved that my mid-life crisis has not resulted in exotic and expensive ventures. In the past year, recently retired friends have purchased an RV trailer the size of a mid-size home, along with a monster pick-up truck to tow it for month-long road trips. Other friends have bought his-and-her motorcycles, along with sundry related equipment to fill a garage, so they can undertake backroad summer day trips.
By comparison the expenditures, of money and time, for my educational pursuits are modest. There is even a tax credit that comes from paying tuition fees.
My children, one of whom started university last year and the other who will start later this year, are my most ardent supporters. They have never questioned my decision to return to school.
However, my daughter is concerned that come September she might find her father seated next to her in a University of Toronto classroom. (Surprisingly, or perhaps not, my kids don’t seem so keen to share news with their teenage friends that their dad is an undergraduate student.)
There are positive aspects to being a student again. I felt palpable excitement leading up to first day of class wondering what the course will be like, while looking forward to meeting new people and learning.
I am transported back many decades when the start of a semester meant the opening of a new chapter in my life.
While at work teaching classes at York University, I’m entertaining my students with my return to school journey, including the problems with having my academic record stored only on microfiche in a university archive. They find my journey less quixotic than do my friends and family, and commiserated with me as I navigated the University of Toronto bureaucracy to re-enroll as a student, a process complicated by my decades-old transcript not being digitized.
My students are amused that I’ve been grandparented by the University of Toronto, meaning that the requirements to complete my BA are those in place when I first began my studies decades ago. As a result – and unlike students today – I need not complete a specific program, major or specialization. I can take an entirely random selection from the 3,700 courses offered by the Faculty of Arts and Science at the university.
My York University students gave me advice on whether to take class notes with pen and paper, or on a computer. I may yet have to ask them for study tips. My son showed me how AI can be utilized in generating basic summaries of required readings.
Being a student again gives me a greater appreciation of the juggling that young people undertake to pursue their education. I had forgotten this over the years, although it must have been part of my years of university studies in the 1980s.
It turns out that the subway ride that takes me from the front of the lecture hall at York University to the back of the class at the University of Toronto is a more complex undertaking than I anticipated.
With the semester well under way and deadlines looming for my course, juggling school and work is part of my life. I wake up each day anxious about my upcoming readings, assignments and exams.
I know I shouldn’t have doubts about my performance as a student. Still, I worry.
Thomas Klassen lives in Toronto.
