I always regretted not completing my degree
"Go, Mom!" yelled her son from the balcony during the Arts and Sciences Graduation Ceremony.
Marilyn Lauritzen had returned to school to complete an undergraduate degree she started years earlier, before marriage and two children.
By the time she graduated from UNCG in 1995, she had amassed many honors, including a Student Excellence Award and a prestigious Phi Beta Kappa Key.
"I did not grow up feeling like I could accomplish this, and to discover that I could do it entirely on my own merits was a source of real satisfaction, " acknowledged Marilyn. (She is surrounded by a family of high achievers: her husband, John, served as a vice president of American Telephone and Telegraph; their son has a M.S. in Chemical Engineering; and their daughter is a physician.)
Her venture to return to school was launched during a conversation in the car with her husband as they drove back to Greensboro following their son's graduation from NC State.
"I always regretted not completing my degree, and when I told my husband this, he encouraged me to go for it," said Marilyn. "Later, he claimed he did not see me for three years!"
"Some people play golf. I take classes!" smiled Marilyn. "I spent countless hours in the library; I love the smell of books, the feel of books, the sounds of the library."
Marilyn, as an English major, has special interest in l7th Century literature, the beginning of modern thought. "That was a time in literature when they were reaching for new ways of looking at the world and man's place in it." She remembers her first test her first semester. She was terrified. Though she received an "A," Dr. Gail McDonald had written a comment on the test that "You really need learn how to cut to the chase." The mental discipline that was required of a housewife and mother to do multitasking had to be translated into a different way of finding focus in the classroom.
Returning to school was a "wonderfully rewarding experience." Her enrollment the first time around was a time she was interested in sorority events, fraternity parties, etc. This time round, she felt she was able to grasp concepts she may not have understood as a younger student, particularly in the some of the coursework she took in the Religious Studies Department.
"Learning was FUN!" she emphasized. She rediscovered "the intellectual joy - making an observation and seeing how far you could push it."
Does she have advice for adult students? "Don't be shy about approaching the faculty! They are willing to be friends and eager to set you off on new intellectual adventures."
Marilyn found that the traditional age kids at UNCG accepted her as another student, and that the faculty was open to her apprehensions though they did not cut any allowances.
The experience of returning to school has, in Marilyn's words, made her "more knowledgeable, more curious. It has enriched the quality of my life."
"Though it was a lot of work, the hours were a labor of love," she added. "Returning to school was not as big a step as I thought."
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Page updated: 06-May-2009
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