Department
Management, Entrepreneurship, and Human Resource Management
Document Type
Poster
Abstract
This autoethnography builds upon my firsthand experiences as a post-traditional aged college student and the discovery of challenges and rewards encountered upon a return to campus after decades of absence. The U.S. Census Bureau reports the number of Americans aged 65 and older is projected to double by 2060, from 52 million in 2018 to 95 million. Concurrently, adult college students were the only demographic category to show increases in 2024 according to enrollment figures from the National Clearinghouse Research Center (2025). The research question for this original autoethnographic work focuses on my personal experience of observing the gaps in support mechanisms and encore career curricula derived from matriculating through bachelors, masters and doctoral degree programs in public higher education institutions in Minnesota. Source material will include personal journals and interviews with those who transcended my education experience and a focus panel with post-secondary learners to gain other perspectives.
Publication Date
Spring 4-15-2025
Recommended Citation
Anderson, Tom, "The Afternoon Knows What the Morning Never Suspected: An Autoethnography of a Post-Traditional Aged Student in Higher Education" (2025). Student Scholarship. 6.
https://metroworks.metrostate.edu/student-scholarship/6
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Comments
Spring 2025: Student Research Conference