At the age of 18, I enrolled at a Los Angeles area community college and ultimately graduated with a degree in computerized business. Now 33 years old, I once again find myself enrolled in a community college.

The problem that I have noticed is that being a returning student is so much more difficult than ever expected it to be.

The expectations that I put on myself are much more difficult to achieve than anything that I ever thought possible.

School is so fast-paced and it seems like just when I think that I am catching up to the rest of my schoolmates, I fall behind even more.

Maybe the problem is being a parent as well as a returning student. That can’t be the case because it seems like plenty of parent-students successfully balance both on a daily basis.

It is possible that it is the 14 years since I was last in school. Either way, one thing is certain and that is that this is going to be harder than I anticipated.

For some reason, I can’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that I feel being one of the oldest students in most of my classes.

It’s not as if I can hang out with classmates in between classes. We have nothing in common.

Sometimes it seems like I am in an alternate universe. I desperately at times want to turn to one of my younger classmates and say, “take me to your leader.”

If I try to build school relationships with my classmates, will people think of me as some “creeper”, or as someone desperate for friends?

The flip side is that when keeping to myself, I am viewed as anti-social.

It would be nice to have a club on campus, which consists of returning students that share similar interests. It would almost make coming to school less strange.

Being a returning student is a constant learning experience.