Returning to School at 37: The Psychology of Starting Over

When people think about returning to school as an adult, they often focus on practical concerns.

Will I be able to afford it?

How will I balance work, family, and classes?

Am I too old?

Will I fit in?

Those are important questions. I had all of them myself. What I wasn't prepared for was how many old fears, old wounds, and old versions of myself would come with me into the classroom. Returning to school wasn't just an academic journey. It became one of the most important psychological and emotional journeys of my life.

The First Time Around

When I was 19, I attended West Chester University as a Music Education major.

It quickly became apparent that I wasn't succeeding the way I thought I would.

One of my most painful memories was failing a class called Aural Activities, where we were expected to get up and sight-sing in front of the entire class. No amount of effort seemed to make me good at it. My struggle became visible to everyone around me, and what felt like a public failure triggered a deep depression.

At the time, I didn't understand how much my family-of-origin experiences had shaped my relationship with achievement. I only knew that I had a tendency to work incredibly hard, push myself to exhaustion, and tie my self-worth to performance.

When I succeeded, I felt temporary relief. When I failed, I froze. Eventually, I stopped going to class altogether. I spent most of my second semester unable to move forward, unable to ask for help, and unable to imagine a different future. I dropped out.

Success Didn't Fix What Was Broken

For many years afterward, I built what looked like a successful career.

I started as a supervisor in the men's department at Sears in Rockaway, New Jersey and worked my way into leadership roles in retail and e-commerce. I became a buyer, traveled internationally, managed budgets, trained teams, and held increasingly significant responsibilities.

From the outside, it looked like success. But something never felt quite right. I was good at what I did. I wasn't fulfilled by it. There is an important distinction between achieving success and finding meaning. Sometimes we become so focused on proving we can do something that we never stop to ask whether we actually want to.

Looking back, I can see that much of my career was driven by a relentless effort to prove my worth. I was chasing validation, mastery, and acceptance from authority figures without realizing how much of that drive was connected to old wounds.

The Leap

At 37, I made a decision that felt both exciting and terrifying. I decided to go back to school. Not to finish what I had started. To start over entirely. The process almost ended before it began.

When I applied to Queens College, my previous academic record nearly prevented me from being admitted. I remember someone in admissions explaining that my earlier GPA did not meet the standard requirements. Fortunately, because I was over 25, I qualified for the Adult Collegiate Program.

That program changed my life. I eventually completed ninety undergraduate credits at Queens College and graduated as valedictorian of my Adult Collegiate Program class.

People often hear that part of the story and assume I must have felt confident by then.

I didn't.

I worried constantly.

About money.

About student loans.

About whether I had chosen the wrong path.

About failing again.

About being too old.

About whether everyone would eventually discover I didn't belong there.

The Secret Struggle of Adult Students

One thing I've noticed as both a therapist and a former adult student is that returning to school often reactivates old beliefs about ourselves. You aren't just taking classes. You're confronting old stories. The student who failed. The child who felt not good enough. The perfectionist who believes mistakes are dangerous. The overachiever who thinks worth must be earned.

At the time, I didn't know about Internal Family Systems (IFS), but I found myself doing something remarkably similar. Whenever fear told me I wasn't capable, I would remind myself that I wasn't 19 anymore. I had built a career. I had solved difficult problems. I had survived disappointment before. I could survive it again.

Learning to Be Uncomfortable

One of the greatest gifts of returning to school was learning to tolerate discomfort. I joined a peer counseling program staffed largely by students 15 to 20 years younger than me. I attended student retreats. I participated in activities where I was painfully aware of the age difference. I completed internships where I was a complete novice again.

At Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, I found myself working with individuals struggling with serious mental illness and being asked to facilitate groups long before I felt fully prepared. I became a research assistant despite having spent much of my earlier life believing I wasn't a "science person."

Again and again, I found myself standing in situations that activated fear of failure. And again and again, I learned that discomfort wasn't actually dangerous.

Graduate School and Perfectionism

Graduate school brought an entirely different set of challenges. Queens College had rewarded many of the study skills I already knew. NYU demanded something different. The assignments were almost entirely papers. Every paper seemed to trigger my perfectionism. Every deadline felt enormous. An A-minus for grammar could send me into a spiral. I worked too much. Read too much. Pushed too hard. At one point, I was trying to read close to a thousand pages a week. I even slept in the library on occasion, convinced that working harder would somehow solve everything.

Eventually I realized something both obvious and revolutionary. Working harder is not always working smarter. Growth required me to stop reenacting old patterns, not perfect them.

Post-Traumatic Growth Is Messy

People often imagine growth as inspirational. In reality, growth is frequently awkward, humbling, confusing, and uncomfortable. For me, returning to school wasn't simply about becoming a therapist. It was about recognizing how many of my life choices had been shaped by unresolved pain and old beliefs about worthiness.

I needed to learn a new way of relating to myself.

A kinder way.

A more sustainable way.

A more honest way.

That process is still ongoing.

I don't think personal growth is something we finish.

It's something we continue.

If You're Thinking About Going Back to School

If you're considering returning to school as an adult, I want you to know something. It is okay to be afraid. It is okay to doubt yourself. It is okay to wonder whether you're making a mistake. Those fears don't mean you're on the wrong path.

Sometimes they simply mean you're standing at the edge of meaningful change.

Going back to school did not magically solve my struggles. Therapy, self-reflection, meaningful relationships, and years of personal work all played important roles.

But returning to school gave me something I didn't know I needed. An opportunity to face parts of myself I had spent years trying to outrun. Looking back, earning degrees was only part of the journey. Learning to trust myself again was the greater achievement.