How I became a Graphic Design student at the age of 40.

On March 9 2017, not only was it my daughter’s 11th birthday, but it was also the day I announced to the world, well my little Facebook world, that at the age of 40 years old, I was going back to school.

Now, I’ve thought long and hard about what my first blog post for my new website should be. I arrived at the decision, that it should be about me! Of course it has to be about me and about how I arrived at where I am right now.

This is a screen shot of the post I made that day. And don’t laugh at the horrible job I had done with the graphic. I now know better and boy I’ve come a long way since then.

I guess this post will cover a couple of different topics; one to always follow your intuition and two, remember that we all start somewhere.

I remember being so excited when I finally realized what I wanted to do when I grew up. I’ll rewind a bit, to tell you how I arrived at this decision. In 2015 or 2016, I started a book blog, where I reviewed books and shared my love for those books with fellow readers. This eventually evolved into me creating my own graphics for not only my book blog for the books that I loved. I eventually made a few amateur trailer videos or “fan made” trailers. It was then, I decided I should probably learn how to do this professionally. There is a need and a market for this, but more importantly, I just really loved to create these things. And who knew, because honestly I’m not that computer literate, and Photoshop intimidated the hell out of me. Layers for this, layers for that, masks, adjustment layers, blending modes…gah! You get the idea. Daunting, intimidating and completely overwhelming, so I avoided it like the plague.

Finally in November of 2016, I decided to actively look into and research graphic design programs. And because I live in a small and very remote Northern Alberta town, it needed to be something I could do online and still have the flexibility to accommodate my family’s schedule. At the time I was a stay-at-home-mom of 3 kids. One was set to graduate in the spring and the other two were in grades 5 and 3.

I had decided on the program, next came the application process and obtaining funding to complete the program. I haven’t been in school for many years. I graduated high school in 1994 and then spent 4 years in university, never completing the program. At the time, it was something I wanted to be doing, accounting, but it was quite difficult. More difficult than I thought it would be and I guess, in hindsight, I wasn’t as committed as I thought I was. So now, here I was trying to write letters as to why I wanted to be doing this program, how it was going to impact my life, etc. Anyway, I was persistent and dedicated to getting this done, I had submitted all the necessary paperwork. I sat back and waited…and waited! Finally on my daughter’s birthday I got the news that I had received the funding and I was good to go!

April 3, 2017, was my first official day. I remember feeling so scared, anxious and excited. Not sure why I was scared…didn’t even have to leave my house and see any of the other students. While we were introducing ourselves to the rest of our classmates, I remember thinking, “great?! I’m the oldest one in this group! What in the hell was I thinking?!” At this point, I decided I wasn’t going to let this stop me or hold me back. I had something that some of these other students didn’t have…years of life experience. That first week was difficult. Complete with computer problems; I had gone out and purchased a brand new Mac book, never used a Mac in my life to that point. So the learning curve was rather steep, well at least it felt that way initially! I felt inadequate and just in general, like a fish out of water. Believe me, there were days and times where I wanted to give up and that I doubted every decision I had made. But as time marched on and the more I learned, the more confident I became in the decisions I was making. I began to trust my instinct and intuition, where design was concerned. My grades were reflecting that and with each and every semester I tried to “one-up” myself and strived to maintain a certain grade level.

And on March 24, 2019, my very last day of my academic career at Toronto Film School, I had achieved just that. For 2 whole years, 8 semesters, I managed to maintain all A’s and firmly parked my butt on the President’s list. This is something I am very proud of. I had proven to myself, and to others, that I am capable of hard work and that , even at the ripe old age of 40, one can learn new things. I’m not going to say that graphic design was easier than accounting, certainly more fun; but rather, I think I enjoyed it that much more and therefore it came to me easier. I love that I have taken what was once a hobby and have turned it into something I enjoy on a daily basis and that I now get paid to do.

#backtoschool #graphicdesignstudent