‘You're never too old to start again': 46-year-old student Crystal Dore

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Society encourages young people to study hard and get an education to give them a good start in life – and rightly so – but is education only for the young?

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Crystal Dore

What if your circumstances change or you have a change of heart about what you want to do in life? What about the evolving job market and the need to keep your skills up-to-date?

There are many reasons why community colleges are attracting students of all ages – in some cases students who return to school after a long hiatus.

Crystal Dore is a good example. In fact, the 46-year-old grandmother from Southampton has returned to college not once but twice in recent years and is currently part-way through the bilingual office administration (BOA) program at NBCC Woodstock.

For Dore, returning to full-time study was a natural progression. After working at Jolly Farmers for some years in what she calls "very physical labour," Dore felt it was time for a change. Having decided that she wanted to improve her earning potential, work in an office and recognizing the need to upgrade her skills, Dore first approached NBCC Woodstock in 2001.

As the office administration (OA) program was already full, Dore opted for the transportation clerk (TC) program, which is no longer available. She said the TC program is similar to the OA program.

"When I first came back, I thought it'd be all 18 and 19 year olds," she said. "But there is a mix of ages and that makes you feel more comfortable."

As she had hoped, the TC training led to an office-based job with a firm of lending specialists. Meanwhile, Dore was doing most of the accounting for her husband Sherwin's woods business – which he runs with the help of their son Craig – and wanting to learn more about the subject led her back to NBCC Woodstock in the fall of 2007 to take the two-year business administration (BA) program with accounting.

While she enjoyed some aspects of the program, Dore found the accounting course to be much more in-depth than expected. Having enjoyed her first-term elective, French introductory, she decided to take a closer look at the BOA program and felt that it provided good training in terms of job prospects. Her instructors provided information about course credits and helped with the process of switching over to BOA in time for the spring term.

Having studied hard to catch up on the French grammar and oral work, with the help of classmate and mentor Misty Brooks, Dore successfully challenged five of the chapters she had missed and caught up to the rest of the class.

As well as continuing with their French studies in the second year of the program, Dore and the other nine students in the class can look forward to learning business writing, employment strategies, customer service, traitement (advanced document formatting) and travail bien presente (research and presentation skills).

Dore is pleased she made the switch and finds Anne Butler, the program instructor, an excellent teacher.

A francophone who hails originally from Caraquet, Butler has taught the BOA course since 2000, and she made the move from NBCC Fredericton to NBCC Woodstock when the program was transferred in 2004.

"A lot of people don't know you can take this bilingual course," Butler noted. "It's the only BOA course in New Brunswick for anglophones wanting to learn French. And unlike office administration, which is one year, the BOA is a two-year program."

Butler also points out that the employment rate from the program is extremely high with most graduates finding work with the provincial government, federal government and private sectors.

"All of our students – that we have heard from – are working," she explains. "A lot get a job through their practicum."

In fact, one BOA student graduating this year, Angela Scott, had completed two weeks of her practicum at Social Development when she was hired as the manager of the Tourism Bureau on Route 95.

So the employment outlook is very positive for Dore and the others in her class.

For now, Dore says she is looking forward to the second year.

"I love college," she says with a smile. "You get to meet a lot of people and you're continually learning. You're never too old to start again!"

Français: L'éducation n'est pas limitée aux jeunes. Les collèges communautaires accueillent les personnes de tout âge qui désirent améliorer leur scolarité, leurs habiletés ou qui veulent se préparer envers de meilleurs emplois. Par exemple, Crystal Dore, une grand-mère de Southampton, poursuit ses études en administration de bureau bilingue au cours de son 2e passage au CCNB de Woodstock.