Life Changing Experience
Chuck Moritz went to school at age 52 for the same reason many adults do in mid-life: he was out of a job. It turned out to be a life-changing experience for him.
Soon after coming to Greensboro for a new job in the early 80's, Chuck was laid off.The economic climate then was terrible, and this was the second career layoff despite his college degree and 25 successful years in business, primarily in production and personnel."I tried to get a job every day," he says, but after long months of frustration in the poor economy, he began to think about graduate school.His plan was to enhance his resume and return to the business world, but his goals were to alter in ways that surprised and gratified him.
Surprise Invitation
He went to UNCG in 1984 to investigate Library Science, but decided instead to audit a course with Dr. William Purkey called: Helping Relationships in Counseling and Education. He found the professor's enthusiasm "fabulous" and the course content "right up my alley.""I had always been something of an amateur psychologist," he says, and Purkey's course "hit all my buttons . . . I wanted to learn more of what he had to say."
Despite Chuck's enthusiasm, it was not easy to enroll in a graduate program. To qualify he had to take an analogies test with difficult questions and vocabulary.He had not taken a test since graduating from Northern Illinois in 1957.When the time was up, he had left 12 questions unanswered.His score was not high enough for admission to the Graduate School.
Rather than giving up, he sought advice and found out about a prep course for the test. After more than two months of practice, his confidence level was up and he tried again. This time he finished the one-hour test 8 minutes early and raised his score. He was admitted to the "Community Track" concentration in "Career Development and Guidance."
Rethinking, Refocusing
For the year and five months it took to complete the program, he continued his job search.He had half a dozen promising interviews, but no job offers. Still planning to reenter the business world, he began to think about combining his experience and his developing counseling skills as a "career counselor for people over forty."Not until graduation approached did his future direction take another turn.
In the meantime, school itself was exhilarating. His wife Marcia had gone back to work, enabling him to become a full-time student for the first time in his life (he was a veteran with a job, a wife and a baby when he finished his undergraduate degree). For the first time, he could spend all afternoon in the library."I was like a 14-year-old kid seeing something for the first time," he remembers.
Like-Minded Peers
He found a group of fellow travelers--5 or 6 others in his program, male and female, aged 30-50, who took the same courses, studied together, and made the coffee shop in the basement of the student center their headquarters.We were like a bunch of recruits in the military, he says, "strangers, but with a common bond."One man, a 42-year-old friend who had returned to graduate school, was particularly helpful."I was like a freshman," Chuck says, and he was an "informal mentor" who helped me with things like student loans and curriculum decisions.They are still friends.
Most of all, what he was learning from Dr. Purkey and others "opened windows I'd never looked out before," he recalls.He had always been a curious person who liked to learn; he had always been friendly, easygoing, and enthusiastic, traits that made him naturally suited to the "invitational" counseling and educational strategies taught by Dr. Purkey.He developed his skills through internships with the Winston-Salem police (in a "morale survey" of the department's secretaries) and the training department for the city of Greensboro, and by helping with undergraduate academic advising.He assisted Dr. Purkey with conferences hosted on campus. Without realizing it, he was preparing himself to move from business to education.
In his last semester, he was taking a Marketing class as an elective to enhance his business credentials, and his professor told him that if he wanted to teach, he'd have a job in two weeks.He was hired by the Fayetteville, NC, schools to teach high-school marketing, and from there he moved to positions as a school counselor, ultimately working with at-risk elementary-school children. (He took the extra classes he needed for licensure at East Carolina.)
Teaching is "so powerful," "so honorable," he says, "such a better fit for my personality than business.""I love the goodness I see in teachers." Despite technically retiring from education in 1997, Chuck still fills in for school counselors on leave. This year, at 68, he is working 1/2 time in an elementary school.
There Was A Difference
"When I came out of graduate school, it was like being 22 years old. I had a different attitude and a different philosophy of living," Chuck says. "That feeling has not gone away but gotten larger. . . . Pursuing knowledge has been my fountain of youth," he says.
To succeed in school as an adult student, it helps to have a supportive spouse. You also need "drive and the energy to be excited about what you're doing," Chuck reflects. But you don't need to be certain about what you will eventually do with your degree."The fact that you start and pursue it is powerful," he says; "mentally, it opens windows and doors" you can't really foresee, such as his second career in education.
Coming back to school as an adult learner brought a new career and "a lot more self worth," Chuck affirms; it truly was a "life-changing experience."
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Page updated: 06-May-2009
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