Anyone else started school at 33 years old? I hope I'm not alone....

[clep3705]

It's good you are asking questions. You'll be given lots of answers. Take what everybody says and synthesize your own answer that is best for you.

Some community colleges have services that can help you. Free or low cost tutoring. Career testing and counseling. Quality of services varies widely. Some find career testing helpful. Others find it to be a waste of time. One thing you are highly unlikely to get good advice on from the community college is testing out of courses and receiving credit. These forums are far better for that kind of specific advice.

If you're willing to work hard, you can shorten the time and cost for obtaining a degree. It's important that you have a well thought out plan. You need to identify jobs that will be a good fit for you. Once you have that insight (that is where career testing and counseling is sometimes helpful), then you need to choose the degree. The choice of degree will affect the choice of schools. The choice of schools determines what you can test out of. It is the school that gives you the credit for testing out of a course. You don't want to take a test that won't count toward your degree. And you don't want to pay tuition for a course that you could test out of.

Part of the plan is figuring out how to pay for it. Student loans are for tuition to pay for courses actually taken, not for exams for testing out.

To be an electrician, you don't need to get an associate's degree. There are people who do accounting even though they don't have degrees, but arguably they are really bookkeepers more than accountants. Normally being an accountant requires at least a bachelor's degree. As a general rule, getting an associate's degree is a good idea. It makes you more than a high school graduate. If life gets in the way on a path to a bachelor's degree, the associate's degree gives you something to show for your efforts. Personally I'd prefer to have two years of community college and an associate's degree instead of two years at a university and no associate's degree. Properly planned, it is often possible to obtain an associate's degree on the way to a bachelor's degree without any extra time, cost, or effort. Everything in associate's degree can potentially count toward a bachelor's degree. It's just something to consider. It's far from your most important consideration at the moment.

I personally know a woman who graduated from nursing school at age 70. There are plenty of people old enough to be your parents starting school. You can do this. It's not about what you should have done. No point in being hard on yourself. Time to move forward. It's all about what you will do. Make a good plan, do it, and revise it as needed. Congratulations on completing your first semester and be good to yourself!