I’m 33 years old and I’m contemplating getting a degree.
I didn’t do well in high school, so I don’t think my marks are going to take me to university; I have to be very creative in acquiring my degree. I am a little miffed that I have a college diploma in costuming, but because none of those credits are transferable, they won’t even look at my excellent college marks (I got Dean’s Listed at least once). But I understand that rules have to be abided or there would be chaos so I’ll go with it.
I met with a recruitment officer for the program I hope to study (which does involve textiles) yesterday and she said that it would be unnecessary for me to retake my high school courses. She told me that I could accumulate 24 credits through the below means, and if I maintain a 2.0 (or C) average throughout these credits, I could get into the program.
1 – Open Studies through the university I want to attend. You can take a maximum of two courses per semester, and often the program I want to take will let open studies students into these classes so I could potentially get some credits that are program-specific before I’m actually enrolled in the program.
2 – Get transferable credits through an online school. There are some requirements for the program I want to take; some science credits, economics credits and English credits. I could get these credits while studying online and then I’d have them out of my way when I start studying my major and minor!
I’m going to start slow as I want to go to school while keeping my job. I’m going to hopefully start with an English class and a Micro Economics class in February through the online university, just to see if I can get myself back into the school mindset. And then we’ll see where things go from there.
I think this blog is starting to lose its craftiness…don’t worry, I’ll still throw some knitting or spinning stuff on here, but it certainly isn’t what it was when I started it.
Edit: A mature student needs a 70% average in English 30, Math 30 and either Bio or Chem 30 to get into this program. I may be wrong, and have requested a copy of my Courses and Marks (free is cheaper than a full on transcript) to be sure, but I’m rather certain that I didn’t do that well in high school. I know I did well in English, but I don’t know that it would be enough to carry my Math and Bio (and I most certainly didn’t take chem 30).
Delly Bean 
Now admittedly, I don’t know the system where you are. It just seems a bit odd to me that you’d have to go through that kind of rigmarole when in my head you’d simply be enrolling as a mature student… does it not work that way?
I edited the post for some clarity on the requirements of a mature student for this program. It’s competitive.
I am loving Uni – I have never been and certainly my marks from high school some, ahem, 25 years ago, wouldn’t have been sufficent. I had to do a 14 week intensive ‘access to Uni’ course and maintain good grades there. It was a blast. Hard work but a blast.
Go for it. (You know my blog has changed direction too – its the way things go).