Reaching Lifelong Goals as a Nontraditional Student

One of the major things I neglected with this blog at the end of last term was to post a link to my WR123 Research Writing class project.   This class was one of the most useful that I have taken so far.   The entire term was devoted to one major research paper.   The skills learned will be invaluable to me throughout my college career.   The textbook was a keeper as well, The Bedford Researcher.   Search for this one and add it to your permanent library.   When it came to selecting a topic and major thesis, I could have taken the easy road and wrote about my History Major topic of World War One aviation, but I decided to stretch myself.   With the topic of nontraditional students being top of mind for me lately, I wanted to produce a work that could be beneficial to my Non Trad community.    I finally came up with the thesis of: THE NON TRADITIONAL STUDENT PHENOMENON:  How has the Non Traditional Student Demographic Affected Teaching Methods and Institutional Accommodations in Higher Education Today. I must have done something right in this class due to my “A” grade.   (I received the second 4.00 GPA of my lifetime for Fall Term 2009)    Researching this paper was challenging, I did find some great sources about new teaching methods for Non Trads.   Statistics about the nontraditional student population in higher education today was a bit problematic.   US Dept of Education statistics were somewhat dated.   The numbers of nontraditional students have risen over the past couple of years due to the economic situation in the US at present.   This information was not as easy to obtain.   Just look around your classrooms this week and you can see that the number of older students is increasing.   This phenomenon is more pronounced in the Community College setting, but major universities have seen increases in enrollment as well.   The student population of Oregon State University has risen to 22,000 this year, up by 8.1% over last year.    The trend towards new teaching methods for older students has been addressed for a number of years, and I highlighted some of them (with resources for instructors…) in my research paper.   My instructor for Research Writing  provided the class with an online “wiki” format to publish our papers.   This website is based on a program called Wet Paint.   Many of my classmates posted their papers here as well.   Feel free to cruise around the postings on this site.  The website is WR123.wetpaint.com and this link will take you to the Nontraditional Student Phenomenon paper .   Pass this link onto your instructors as well, they may even get a kick out of it.