The college experience for many students starts when they are fresh out of high school with dreams of living it up at night and mixing in classes during the day.
But some students take a different approach to their education and gain a different kind of life experience before applying those experiences to class work.
Doug McCurry, a 49 -year-old mechanical engineering sophomore, started college right after finishing high school but dropped out.
“I wasn’t sure what to do the first time around,” McCurry said. “I worked full-time and started taking classes part-time a few years ago.”
McCurry’s quit his job and started school full-time this past spring semester after a life-changing experience.
“Last spring I was working and going to school, and I had a heart attack,” McCurry said.
McCurry said he decided to change his lifestyle after his heart attack and his college experience is much better now.
“Your social life is not as important as your education is now,” he said. “You come back now and want to make the most of it.”
Because of his age and life experience, McCurry is part of a group of students classified as “non-traditional” by the Association for Non-Traditional Students in Higher Education.
The purpose of ANTSHE is to serve college students aged 25 and older because they often go unrecognized by their universities, according to the organization’s Web site, www.antshe.org.
Gabe DeGabrielle, executive director of the organization, said his organization uses 25 because the National Center for Education chose it.
“The National Center for Education defines [non-traditional students] through age and life experience,” DeGabrielle said. “Age is picked because campuses need measurable statistics.”
DeGabrielle said ANTSHE was formed because non-traditional students often have added responsibilities, like full-time jobs and children, that many younger students do not have.
The National Center for Education is an agency that collects and analyzes educational data. Other organizations use the center’s data to base their own findings.
Though individual universities may choose their own age for classifying non-traditional students, LSU uses 25.
Though McCurry had to drop out early in his college career, he does not regret his decision. He said he feels like being a non-traditional student has advantages and some professors and students agreed.
Tom DiNapoli, a German professor, said non-traditional students often do better than younger students in his classes.
“They know the value of a dollar and to make every minute count,” DiNapoli said. “Maybe there’s more at stake in finishing their degree.”
DiNapoli said many non-traditional students actually enjoy learning, as opposed to just taking a class to meet requirements.
One of DiNapoli’s non-traditional students is 25-year-old Suat Namli. Namli is a mathematics doctoral student, but he wanted to learn German.
“I usually let them just sit in the class, but he wanted to do it for a grade because he thought it would be more of an incentive to learn the language,” DiNapoli said.
Namli said he wished he would have had the same study habits in his undergraduate years as he has now.
“In my [undergraduate] university, I was not attending class 50 percent of the time,” Namli said.
Namli said he would encourage other students to go to class because it can help bring academic success.
“It’s a matter of attending class, especially a language class,” he said. “It’s not like math or music which needs a special talent.”
Josh Redd, a 19-year-old accounting sophomore, said he imagines the responsibilities of the non-traditional students in his classes.
“There’s a guy in my geology class, and you can tell he must come straight from work,” he said.
Redd said though many non-traditional students do well when they come back, he thinks it’s better for younger students to get done with college early.
“It shows you need to get your stuff done,” Redd said. “You don’t want to have to come back.”