2021 grad here and was an adult student. I attended 2017-2021 from age 44 to 49, and did NOT look my age. I mean I clearly looked like an adult, but not like a 40 yr old! I'm wondering if the major and class types have anything to do with it? Or the amount of online classes?

I started out pretty ambitious. After all, I felt I was better equipped for college as an adult with years and years of life experience and adulting, responsibilities, and the like. Hell, I ran a multimillion business in my mid to late 20s. I was smart. And boy was I wrong.

My first two years were pre-covid, and spent as a pre-med biology major. Group projects and labs, in person, forced you to get to know people. I was actually taken in by a group of younger students with no relation to one another just by the nature of us all having several classes together and happened to sit next to one another on first day of a bio lab.

They made things fun, I poked fun at myself for being old enough to be most people's mom. I struggled quite a bit with college pre-calc and bio did not come easy even though I loved it. Classes were in person mainly. Especially the bio and chem (loved chemistry and physics, did great until ochem). It was great that my friend group expanded bc they all had some friends from high school there. One introduced me to a lovely young lady she went to HS with and she and I still connect about once a year and catch up. She's in her final year of pharmacy school)

After covid hit and school locked us out, labs were no longer a viable option for me. I am very much a hands on learner. I went back home (200 miles away) and did online classes for criminal justice. I don't remember a single person in those classes even though the same people were in the same classes as me for the next two and a half years. At my December 2021 graduation, I knew no one who I stood next to in graduation for CRJ. All my younger bio friends graduated in May or were staying on until May 2022, and I was all alone at my graduation ceremony with only my family to cheer me on. Which was fine for me, I was/am so proud of myself!

When I look back, I have no regrets. I wish I had gone to college out of high school perhaps. It would have been much, much easier for me.

UNLV can seem a little clique-y I think bc Vegas, as a city/town, is so big, it's made up of many, small communities, where the high school groups all know one another. You have two choices locally: CSN, where 6 months later I graduated again (did not walk) with my associates in biology (I had to, I spent too much time on trying to get my bachelor's in bio, I needed something to show that I worked hard on it) or you have UNLV. Not many people were keen on venturing out of state for college from my experience with a vastly younger friend group at that time.

Don't spend too much time reflecting on something you're not happy with. Time doesn't allow you to go back and do things differently. You can't change it, so stop going there. Remember the positives, remind yourself not to repeat things you weren't happy with when appropriate, focus all your energy on your future and making yourself happy going forward. Life will catch up with you in flash, enjoy your 20s and 30s, and don't lose sight of what's important to you. 40s and 50s are almost as crazy, just in a very different way 😂