Tuesday, August 26, 2008 9:04 PM CDT
First class day proves good for two generations
By HERB MEEKER, Staff Writer
hmeeker@jg-tc.com
MATTOON — Tammy Hamilton, a mother of five, felt like she was headed back to kindergarten on her first day at Lake Land College.
“I couldn’t sleep. I have butterflies in the stomach,” said Hamilton, a Mattoon resident, minutes before she started her first class, to head into a new career, during opening day of the fall semester.
It was her first time attending a higher education class in nearly three decades. She said she now has a grown daughter with a masters degree so it seems like the right time to head to college.
But Samatha Morrison, the 2008 high school valedictorian from St. Elmo, was cool as a smoothie as she talked about her first day of college. She showed the same confidence she possesses while teaching tumbling to children not yet old enough for kindergarten.
“It’s college. There’s no need to get nervous about it. I just think how many freshmen like me are walking around on their first day here,” the 18-year-old said before she headed into a statistics class.
These two women represent the opposite ends of the spectrum of students attending community colleges like Lake Land throughout the country this fall: traditional or students just out of high school, and non-traditional students who have not experienced college education for years —or ever.
Hamilton, who has worked in offices and restaurants for paychecks over the years, is taking cosmetology classes with a personal dream of operating her own salon someday.
“I decided I needed to go for this. When you’re my age it is harder to get a good job. I’m always worried employers all want younger workers,” she said.
As she talked, the classroom started to fill up with much younger cosmetology students, all with especially shiny and styled hair for a college class session at eight on a Monday. The name of the course was Salon Management, taught by business instructor Jared Zimmerle, who asked about the golden ring sought by Hamilton and many of her classmates.
“How many of you want to start your own business?” Zimmerle asked.
Many hands in the classroom shot up without hesitation. It proved many community college students have personal dreams of bettering themselves through vocational training.
But the instructor tempered the question as well.
“The reason I asked that was because I will ask that question again on the day of the final exam,” the soft-spoken instructor said with a smile.
Hamilton said she felt more confident after her first class session. She liked the friendly advice and other help like the instructor’s e-mail for maintaining quicker communication on class projects or homework assignments, she said. Running down a college instructor used to be a challenge for students.
“Everything he gave us there was helpful,” she said while looking over the class syllabus. “And with e-mail for contacting instructors I don’t have to worry about finding my instructors anymore.”
She also talked about how her past experience in time management and business practices will help her.
“It seems overwhelming right now, but I think I can handle it,” she said. “And I think I might enjoy it, too.”
Morrison believes the personal touch of Lake Land will keep her on track. Like Hamilton, she believes the community college choice was right for her.
“I know my twin brother, Fletcher, has a class with 600 students in a lecture hall at the U of I. I couldn’t stand that. A four-year school would have been such a big change for me. I couldn’t stand living in a strange place with strangers. If I started as a freshman there I would be crying and calling up my mom every night.”
Working to gain knowledge of osteopathy medicine, Morrison knows she has a long education path ahead.
“I’m looking at several years in college,” the teenager said. “ But when I teach tumbling I tell my students it is all about yourself. You have to put forward the effort. And college is like that. Why do something unless you’re not going to put 100 percent into it?”
And she was saying that after attending the first sessions of her statistics, chemistry and biology courses Monday morning.
But she is looking ahead for the day when her medical career gets started.
“I’m interested in making people feel better. I’m not doing this for the money,” she said proudly.
Contact Herb Meeker at hmeeker@jg-tc.com or 238-6869.
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