The Limits of Success
by Jen A. Becker
Illustration by Meria Ivy
“My advisor reminded me that I was a non-traditional student and that I should adjust my expectations accordingly.”
Illustration by Meria Ivy
Ryan Riley is a 33-year-old senior at the University of Iowa studying English & Creative Writing. As a child, he was quiet, and the only child of two working parents—a latchkey kid who was picked on a lot in school. “They used to call me ‘chinky,’” he remarked nonchalantly. “It didn’t matter that I was Korean.” Despite being bullied, he was an honor roll student at MacArthur High School in Lawton, Oklahoma, graduating at the top 10% of his class in 2003. Unsure of what to do with the rest of his life, he found himself lost and in with a bad crowd that detoured his way through a path of drugs, alcohol, and parties. “I wasn’t properly socialized in high school,” Ryan explained. “When I got out of my parent’s house, I started drinking a lot, started doing as many drugs as I could get my hands on. By the time I got out of the stupor, I’d wasted four years of my life.”
Trying to get back on track, Ryan enlisted in the Navy in 2008 at the age of 22. “I remember thinking that the war had to be over soon. Now they’ve been fighting 17 years.” Riley served as a Turn-to P.O. responsible for assisting other military personnel with “anything that wasn’t expressly covered by military law.” This included speeding tickets, how to get out of a lease, how to buy a car, and helping seamen deal with getting married way too young—helping them realize what their obligation is in the military. Ryan completed his Naval service in 2013 and, with the help of the GI Bill, he enrolled in Tulsa Community College, followed by enrollment at the University of Iowa in the fall of 2017. Vocational school could also have been covered by the GI Bill, but undecided at the time, he thought college would be his best option. “I bought into the whole idea that an education meant something. Now, coming out of this, I’m not too sure.”
Many non-traditional students, like Ryan, have found it difficult to navigate through university life. But what exactly is a non-traditional student? According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the term “non-traditional student” covers anything from having to enroll in classes part-time in order to work a full-time job, having family responsibilities such as a spouse and/or children, or enrolling in college more than a year after high school graduation. Following this guideline, any student who is not counted as a dependent and who will receive their bachelor’s degree past the age of 25 is likely to be considered a non-traditional student. It is ultimately up to each college or university to determine how they wish to recognize this population and their needs.
The University of Iowa does not have a classification for non-traditional students. We are not considered when creating programs that will help all students be successful. In fact, when I asked my advisor, Karen “Kate” Torno Fashimpaur, what the university does to help nontraditional students, she admitted that we are “a group of students who fall between the cracks.” She explained that unless a student presents themselves as non-traditional, she doesn’t usually know that is who she’s working with. Kate was unable to give me an estimate of how many nontraditional students she has under her advisement because she simply doesn’t know.
I know of four non-traditional students under Kate’s advising, including Ryan. My college journey started in 2012 at Black Hawk College (BHC) in Moline, Illinois. Thirty years ago, when I was in high school, I was never encouraged by my family to go to college. Sure, it was talked about at school, but even then, the greater focus was on completing a high school diploma in order to get a decent job. Since I already had a job at Hardee’s and had a pretty miserable high school existence, I wasn’t thrilled about going to college. Years later, I started looking into attending college, but ended up getting married, and well, life happens.
I had been a stay-at-home, homeschool mom for nearly ten years when our family needed more income. We put the kids in public school, but I had difficulty finding work until I was finally hired as a teacher’s aid at Alwood Middle Highschool, the same school my children were attending. I worked there for about four years, but the wages were low and I didn’t receive pay for summertime, holidays, or snow days. Trying to find a better and consistently paying job without a college degree was nearly impossible. Obtaining a degree seemed like the only way I would be able to find better employment. My husband at the time didn’t think it was worth taking out a loan, and was not onboard with my decision to go to college, but it was important to me and it was the only way I could help meet the needs of our family, so I enrolled in two online classes for Fall 2012.
BHC offered a lot of their classes online, so the majority of my associate’s degree was earned by taking part-time, online classes while working 30-35 hours per week. Over the next five years, all three of my children graduated from high school, with the youngest graduating the same year that I graduated from Black Hawk College in the spring of 2017. He went into boot camp. I enrolled part-time in UI’s online Bachelor of Applied Studies (BAS) program. I wasn’t excited about having to follow such a generic degree program when the university was well known for its writing program—that I would much rather have been a part of—but I needed to work full-time. I thought if I added the writing certificate, I’d at least be able to take some writing-focused classes. Part of me hoped that the online options would change during my time at UI and I might still be able to take advantage of at least some of the writing program benefits.
Fortunately, after two semesters and 12 credit hours under my belt, I found myself in a situation where I could quit my job to focus on my education full-time. In fall of 2018, I changed my major to English & Creative Writing on the publishing track, but none of the classes I had already taken in the previous two semesters—not even the writing classes—transferred to anything more than electives. None of them counted directly toward my new major. Kate talked with me a little bit about what I wanted to accomplish, and we made a general plan for what I would need to do over the next two years.
Transitioning from online to on-campus status put me in an unusual position. Since I was already a UI student, it didn’t occur to anybody to tell me I should go through orientation, where I would have learned more about the programs offered, where buildings were located, and that I now needed to provide medical records; this wasn’t a requirement as an online student but caused problems when trying to enroll for my second semester on-campus.
Sitting in a classroom again quickly took me back to feeling all eyes on me, worried about what classmates thought of me, and certain if I said the wrong thing, the class would erupt in laughter. Online classes easily afforded the opportunity to participate while maintaining a shield of invisibility. Being in a physical classroom meant both listening and responding to fellow students; I had to remind myself I was no longer the painfully shy, awkward student I was in high school. In addition, learning to juggle a full-time student class-load—including homework—while managing home upkeep and providing meals for my family has had its challenges. So, why do I keep pushing myself, challenging my abilities, sacrificing my home and work life?
How do other non-traditional students stay motivated? What have their journeys been like up to this point? How do they balance their home and family and school? When I started asking these questions of fellow non-traditional students, I didn’t realize the common blockade each of us faced existed within the school itself. Complaints started with the fact that there’s not enough guidance of overall programs of study, and insufficient planning assistance to help choose the right classes that will keep them on track.
They felt, because they are older students with more life experience, they were expected to know how to navigate their college roadmap. In addition, it would be helpful if more classes were offered online or in the evenings to accommodate family needs.
Two of the non-traditional students I spoke with about their experiences at the University of Iowa, without being prompted, described many of their required classes as “gatekeeping,” or trying to weed students out. Both of those students are in honors classes, so they can’t be accused of making such a statement out of laziness or as students just trying to get by. Ryan was one of those students. The other one was Brianna Franklin.
Brianna is currently a junior at the University of Iowa who is also studying English and Creative Writing. She is 24 years old and qualifies as a non-traditional student because she didn’t enroll in college until three years after graduating in 2013 from City-As-School High School located in New York City. Eighteen months into her high school years Brianna transferred schools because she was being treated badly – not just by other students. When talking about how she was treated by some of her teachers, Brianna remarked, “There’s only so many times you can hear that you’re not intelligent.” Needless to say, high school left her feeling exhausted and she needed a “gap” before entering the college scene. “I was a mess in a non-traditional way,” she explained. “I wasn’t into drugs, but I didn’t have a lot of friends. I just needed time to learn to deal with what was happening.” Brianna’s parents were supportive and understood that she needed this break from school. She worked a lot and found herself in positions that allowed her to “screw up” but at the end of the day she still had a job. “I was extremely lucky and don’t take that lightly. I learned a lot from it.”
In 2016, Brianna was ready for a change. She recognized she wasn’t going to find a career in the work she’d been doing and felt more prepared for the next step. After searching through a list of the best community colleges in the country, she enrolled in Santa Barbara City College for the Fall 2016 semester. Her “gap” allowed her to approach school differently and to decide what type of student she wanted to be. Fears that she might fall into some of her old habits didn’t hold her back. She was more concerned about the ability to get everything done than she was about having good grades. Half of that battle, she quickly realized, was accomplished by simply showing up and completing the work. Brianna enrolled at UI in the Fall of 2018 as an Honors student because of her success in community college. However, one of her biggest struggles was that many of her credits from Santa Barbara City College didn’t transfer to her degree program at the University of Iowa resulting in having to take more gen-eds than she’d anticipated.
While Brianna is frustrated with her experience as a non-traditional student at the University of Iowa, she believes that it’s more of a national issue than something that is UI specific. “Community colleges do a much better job” accommodating the non-traditional student. “When you get into a university this size, it’s kind of like a conveyer belt.” She acknowledges that the university works hard to cater to the needs of transfer students but doesn’t see any separation between transfer and non-traditional students. “They don’t know what to do with us. We have different needs and different realities.” A possible solution, in Brianna’s opinion, would be to have an advisor specifically for non-traditional students, believing that the advisors are already overworked. “They’re giving out conveyer-belt information because that’s what they can do.” Brianna feels like she’s been misguided in some of the advising that she’s received, and at times has been incorrectly referred to another person or department, leaving issues unresolved.
The University of Iowa does have advisors dedicated strictly to students who are seeking the online-only degrees of Bachelor of Applied Studies (BAS) or Bachelor of Liberal Studies (BLS) as a part of University College. Nancy Romine is an advisor for newly admitted BAS/BLS students. She pointed out that online students don’t have as complete access to university resources as on-campus students. They often select this type of degree because they are geographically committed but need a bachelor’s degree to advance in their current field. “Many tell us they are attracted because they know the UI name.” BAS/BLS students are also made up of a mixture of both traditional and non-traditional ages.
I talked with Nancy about my two semesters as a BAS student with a Writing Certificate, asking why the writing classes didn’t transfer even though my major in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) was also writing focused. She explained that CLAS restricts credits that can apply to a certificate and a major, stating that no more than six hours can be used for both, but it is not a guarantee that all related classes will transfer. “How students transfer, even from other institutions, is not really clear,” explained Nancy.
While UI has expanded the number of online degree and certificate programs available to online-only students in recent years, there are not a lot of online classes open to students in other colleges within the university. For instance, my major is English and Creative Writing on the Publishing track in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. When browsing classes for Fall 2019 semester under the course subject ENGL, of the 184 class options, there are two classes available online, and one of those two classes is “Restricted to Distance and Online Students/Majors” so special permission would be needed if I were to try to take that class as a part of my major. The other course subject common in my degree program is CNW, Creative Nonfiction Writing, and out of 27 total classes, there is only one online course available, and it is restricted to distance and online majors only. The increased availability of online classes would be beneficial to many non-traditional students.
Theresa Patterson is another non-traditional student who believes that UI is not geared toward non-traditional students and not designed to offer this student demographic what it needs to succeed. She is 58 and currently a junior at UI majoring in English and Creative Writing. When she was growing up, she dreamed about being a doctor. Her father and grandfather both attended college and she had plans to follow that same path. However, after she graduated from Shenandoah High School in 1978, she found herself pregnant and was married shortly after. Life had other plans that led to a 25-year-long career working as a chef with little formal training. Seven years ago, life threw another detour her way when she suddenly lost her vision and was no longer able to work as a Chef.
Doctors said her vision loss was due to untreated high blood pressure which destroyed the blood vessels in the back of her eyes. She tried to stay positive, not knowing if her vision would ever come back. “I had good doctors and they never told me to start learning brail, so….” she shrugged and smiled. With multiple surgeries, cornea replacement, and continued monthly injections she is now able to see. In 2016 she started taking classes at Marshalltown Community College with the intention of finding a new career that would allow her to work from home if that would ever be necessary. She received an Associate Degree with Honors in English before enrolling at UI for Fall 2018. Most of her challenges at UI are financial, but she has also been frustrated with a lack of guidance with what classes to take.
All of us are at varying stages of life and have had different journeys that have brought us to the University of Iowa. But as non-traditional students, many of our needs are the same. We should not be made to feel like our dreams or goals are too big. It should not be assumed that because we are older than the average student and have more life experience, that we know how to navigate our university roadmap. The university could have more flexible class options, such as more online classes, or even making use of technology that could accommodate a skype-in presence to an on-campus class. Perhaps dedicating an advisor or two for students who identify as non-traditional would be beneficial as well. But before any of that can happen, the University of Iowa needs to acknowledge that we are a very real part of the undergraduate student population striving to be successful.