Being an "old man on campus" at ASU in 1982


Nowadays, in my sixties, I find that the range of people that I consider to be "about my age" is very wide, from the young whipper-snappers who are just barely qualifying for a senior discount, to the wise and venerable ones who have made it past seventy. But when I was going to ASU, I recall really feeling my age, because there's a huge difference between someone who has recently graduated from high school, and someone who has been away from it for many, many years. I was an "old man on campus", and I knew it.

I was twenty-five in the photo at the top of this post, and I really had no one but myself to blame for making such slow progress towards graduation, which I would do that year. It was just a four-year degree, but it took me seven. Most people graduated at age 22, or at least 23, so my being 25 meant that, although no one was kindly holding my elbow when I walked up stairs, I felt my age. It was time for me to get myself organized, wrap up the remaining classes, and move on.

Don't get me wrong, I did fine in college. The lowest grade I ever got was a "C" (in accounting) but I've always been what nowadays is called ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) - and if a class interested me I'd sign up for it, even if it wasn't required for graduation. I took all of the classes for advertising, even though they weren't required for my graphic design degree.

My goal in college was to learn stuff, which I did. I learned graphic design, marketing, advertising, and everything that I wanted to know in order to start my own business (which I never really did, unless you count freelancing). In all of my professional career, no one ever asked to see my diploma, or what grades I got, or how long it took me to get through college - they looked at what I could do, and hired me.

When I started teaching, in 1996, I brought this attitude to the classroom. My goal was to teach skills that people could take into the marketplace, things like Photoshop, etc. Yes, of course there were pieces of paper with letters on them, but I knew that they never mattered. And I often saw elderly people (especially when I taught at the Community College) who were well over 22 and feeling self-conscious about being there. But I knew that age was just a number, and it's never too late to learn!

Image at the top of this post: Behind the Art Building at Arizona State University in 1982, Tempe, Arizona.
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