Maureen Malcolm is a good person to have at a cocktail party. She can chat people up about the archeology of the American Southwest, the psychological anatomy of trauma and even what women’s shoes from various eras tell us about the culture of the time.
Malcolm, 69, is a wealth of knowledge, partly because she has been taking classes at Simon Fraser University’s continuing studies program for seniors ever since she retired nine years ago.
She felt it was important to keep her mind active.
“When people retire, often they have this time on their hands and especially some people, if they had a very, very demanding job ... suddenly they feel, ‘Oh, no, there’s not enough to fill my day,’ ” said Malcolm, a former adult education worker herself.
This is not a problem that afflicts the busy grandmother of six. Malcolm will sometimes go for lunch with her classmates before or after a lecture or attend meetings of a poetry appreciation group she formed with some colleagues as a way of building on what they learned in a recently completed seminar class.
People 55 and older can take some SFU classes at a discount; these classes are mostly held at the university’s downtown campus.
The University of B.C., as well as Langara and Douglas colleges, VCC and the University of the Fraser Valley, offer some courses tuition-free for seniors 65 and older, and others at a discount. Capilano University has a program called Eldercollege geared to adults 55 and up “with a zest for learning and exploring life,” which costs $139 per term or $75 for a single course, according to the program’s website.
The breadth of courses offered and the quality of the instructors are what keeps Malcolm coming back to SFU’s continuing studies program. In her nine years of taking classes, Malcolm said she has only had one instructor who she didn’t think was “absolutely fabulous.”
“Everybody I know that’s taken one always comes back and does more,” she said. “You kind of get to have your favourite instructors, so if you see they’re teaching another one, you want to take that.”
Malcolm said her classmates range in age from 55 to their early 90s and tend to be women, although her current class on the archeology of the American Southwest has attracted more men than usual.
One of her classmates is so enthusiastic about the program that he commutes regularly from Ladysmith on Vancouver Island, Malcolm said.
She takes notes in class in order to stay focused, but because she is not pursuing the program’s liberal arts certificate, Malcolm is not required to complete written assignments or tests. Literature and history are among her favourite subjects.
Malcolm doesn’t plan to cease her studies any time soon.
“I’m doing this as long as I possibly can,” she said. “I have six grandchildren and they think it’s quite funny that nanny still goes to school.”
No comments:
Post a Comment