After dropping out of university, it took the COVID pandemic and a cancer diagnosis for UNE Bachelor of Arts student Carla Penny to realise obtaining a degree was something she needed to achieve for herself.
In her 40s, with three teenage children, and her mother’s advice in her ears to “just be a homemaker”, Carla had reached a point where she wanted more for herself.
Then, finding herself confined within the four walls of her home during the pandemic to look after her health when diagnosed with cancer, Carla found she needed a positive distraction.
“I had the idea to try and finish my studies to give myself some outlet for the nervous energy I had through my illness and inability to go out at all,” she says. “I just needed something to focus on other than surgical scheduling and that walls-closing-in feeling of having to stay home.”
Carla had a modest goal in mind to complete at least a trimester of study, but her husband encouraged her to enrol in a full degree, and chip away at it, no matter how long it took. He had completed a Bachelor of Science at UNE Armidale, so Carla decided to try UNE as well, studying online from her home in Nowra.
Having little university experience, Carla enrolled through the UNE Pathways course, a bridging course focusing on the academic skills and resources to help succeed in a degree, which she says proved the right choice.
Pathways really is invaluable in the way that the unit coordinators assist you to get your footing. I had two options for enrolling in university when I applied, and I was up in the air about whether to take the Pathways route, but ultimately decided I could probably use the brushing up of old skills.
“I don’t think I would have continued into Trimester 2 if I had gone the traditional enrolment route, I would’ve felt so completely overwhelmed and incompetent.”
With two children in critical schooling years (Years 10 and 12) and having completed surgery and been given the all-clear from her oncologist, Carla took time off her studies after her Pathways units and her chosen elective to regroup.
But after a two trimester break, Carla was ready to dive back in, and is “absolutely loving everything I’m learning this trimester,” now focusing on a major in Religions of the Ancient World.
I think at some point in life the perspective changes, and everything stops feeling so crucial and urgent. We then realise time spent on ourselves is not selfish. Learning something new becomes rewarding, rather than tedious.
“Choosing to attend university in my 40s was a decision that frightened me, but it was a choice that I made, rather than a choice that was made for me in my high school years.”
And the Pathways course provided the support she needed to get going.
“The unit coordinators in Pathways do a lot to build us up, to show us that we are capable and push us towards our goals.
“I feel more confident now that I’ve been at UNE for a few trimesters. I was timid and nervous about every interaction the first trimester, a little less so the second. And then I just found my footing, I learned how to navigate MyLearn and MyUNE to find resources and complete assessments without feeling I was out of my depth. And I enjoy helping other students who may not have had the Pathways experience to find helpful resources like the Academic Skills Office factsheets.”
As well as enjoying her subjects and the ability to interact with other students on the unit forums, Carla says a real highlight has been her academic achievements.
“If I have to choose one thing I’m most proud of, it’s getting an HD for the first time. I didn’t know what that grade meant, so I waited anxiously for my husband to get home, and when he saw the grade, he started cheering!”
For anyone else thinking about going to university later in life, Carla’s advice is – “Do it! But do it for you. Don’t do it for anyone else, or you won’t fully appreciate the journey you’re on.”
