The Curve-wrecker

The first week of classes is over, and so are my quiet dog-walks around Holt Arena.  Welcome back, ISU students. I’m excited to report that I’m one of you again. I’m enrolled in a professional writing class.

I remember students like me. They were older, wiser, and didn’t play intramural games at 10pm. They read the assignments, looked forward to discussion and didn’t wear sweats, flip-flops and ball caps to class. They didn’t care about “Thirsty Thursday” at the Rum Runner bar, and they wrecked the grading curve. I imagined being the curve-wrecker, but the first class adjusted my expectations like a rear-end collision.

When I entered the room at the new Rendezvous Center, a few students were already seated. And, yes, I know that the center was built in 2007 and is not necessarily “new”, but anything at ISU that wasn’t there in 1996 is “new” to me.  I know good students are supposed to sit in front, so I dragged my dress shoes up there.

As kids, excuse me, students filed into the room, I wondered where the men were. With only one male student in the midst, I was clearly not in engineering school any more. And as I anticipated, I was the oldest. By a generation. Maybe two.

The professor started going over the syllabus and introducing words and phrases foreign to me. I considered the only thing that might make this first class more uncomfortable would be if I’d have shown up in a cow suit. I let my mind wander to that hilarity but my focus was yanked back to the present with the silence that follows a question on day one. I don’t have to answer as many questions if I sit in the front, right?

We went around the room introducing each other, and one by one, I realized that I’m the only student with a degree, let alone a Master’s. I am also the only one without an English or writing focus. I felt like the GPS led me astray and I was sitting on the wrong side of the tracks.

The entire meeting was a fascinating example of the emotion and dynamics that can surface when one is a minority or in a new setting.  I have two degrees for crying out loud and a house and a career and a turtle who loves me. I write a column. I’ve been a professional for almost two decades, but when surrounded by these young, self-identified writers and math-loathers, I stuttered. I hesitated. I stifled my voice and felt small and insecure. I felt a shred of what other students, young and old all over town, felt last week.

It’ll get better though, and we’ll find our grooves.  I suppose when my nerves settle I might just be the class curve-wrecker, but I doubt it. I look forward to the class discussions, though, and rooting for whoever the curve-wrecker proves to be.