What it’s like to be back in school where you’re ten years older than most

Going back to college at age 28, I knew there were going to be obstacles and barriers to deal with. One of the obvious challenges was the maturity gap. The older you are, the more mature you tend to be. It’s all part of growing up. It means that your humor is different, how you converse with others is different, and what matters to you changes. I am not a social butterfly and have never had lots of friends. The older I get, the more I question friendship, and the less bullshit I am willing to put up with.

One of the good things however with being in a program that focuses on film and television, is that the group projects you work on, forces people to act like professionals. The more you act like a professional, the better the result is when it comes to putting together a project. The best teams are those who can turn off their immaturity and silliness, when it comes to meetings, when preparing for a shot, and when actually shooting a scene. There were times, when in class or in projects, where I felt like I was working with mature adults, and other times that I felt that I was definitely nine to ten years older than my classmates. Now granted, sometimes I could gel with my fellow classmates, engage in their humor, and get along, but there were times I wish some of them would grow up and act like adults. There were people who when I worked with them, I knew I was getting a professional who I not only respected, but who respected me. Then there were others who acted childish, and who I’ve questioned if they can even act like mature, grown adults.

One aspect of immaturity that I saw, was that there were people in my class who were not humble. They had to take the lead on projects. I remember one long, disastrous project where when I was supposed to be the director on the project (based on the rules set by the professor). I wasn’t able to be a director, because both people of my team (we were a group of three), absolutely refused to take on the other two, important roles. They thought that all three of us should direct the project. Yes you read that right. No, it’s not a joke. Sadly, these ego driven students were who I was stuck with. The project went downhill from there and the project almost didn’t happen. Thanks to the kindness of our professor, which we would never get in the professional world, we were able to shoot. Given that they were both in directing class, and cinematography, they understood and could be involved more in aspects of the filming process and I was relegated to sitting around, waiting for them to get things done and occasionally help them. By wanting to be directors and cinematographers, their egos were massive. As the cinematographer is also a leadership position. For those of you who are unaware they oversee the lighting and camera crew.

Being shuffled off to the side was something that I experienced all too often on the larger productions. Given that I didn’t have a lot of experience in camera and lighting, and that I abandoned directing after the disastrous second year experiences, aside from writing, I didn’t have much value to bring to the table. Coming up with ideas that would be feasible to do under certain constraints was a difficult thing to do, and none of my ideas ever came close to getting a green light. Again some people I worked with treated me well. With others, I was glad when it was all over. The more professional people I worked with, made me feel like I was respected, and that I was worth being around on set. Then you have groups like the one I described a paragraph ago, where I questioned why I was even on a set to begin with. It also seemed, especially in the first two years of the program, that I would be working with people who would eventually quit the program. One of the two people from the disastrous project dropped out for a year, but unfortunately came back. As you can probably tell, I don’t like him very much, especially after all the crap I had to deal with. The other one, became very close friends with the people I ended up being in a friend group with.

That brings me to another struggle. Like I mentioned before, I’m not good with having friends, as I have had a lot of false friends. I have had “friendships” that were not based on much. I was friends with a leech, for eight years. And believe me, I will talk about him in another post. Up until being in the film and television program, I never had a friend group. I felt going into the program that it was going to be crucial for me to get into a friend group, as a lot of films are based on working with a great core group of people, who you trust, and work well with. Ideally you become friends with people who have strengths other than your own, and you can collaborate on projects together. It was something I never experienced before, and upon reflection, I can’t say with confidence that I would want to stick it out and actively pursue working with them again. One thing I noticed is that most in that friend group could not get into a professional mode, when it came to meetings and preproduction. I found that I might be able to communicate in a professional manor with one or two people in the group, while the rest could not stay focused on the task at hand.

Then came the fourth year. Two of the people in the friend group got their project green-lit. The director or the person whose project was green-lit was responsible for choosing the crew that they wanted. I thought, at the time that one of them would e-mail me, or contact me, even by just talking to me an offer me a position in their film. Now looking back, I can see the argument that I might not necessarily be offered, especially because I never did anything that was worthy of attention. I can also the argument being made that they had plenty of choices, that other people had asked/emailed them for specific positions or that they didn’t know exactly what to offer me. If I didn’t get a major role, and a secondary role on a separate project, I would fail the class, and would have to repeat it the next year, with new students. The secondary role I had no problems trying to get, but for a major role, you usually turn to friends, and people that you know. When you never get asked to be in a group and you always seem to be in the leftover group that no one wants to work with, going into fourth year is a challenge. For all I know, maybe no one thought I was a good worker, or that I could contribute to a project. I don’t know. When I reached out to one of the students, I did not expect the response I got, which ties into the immature nature of the students, and that particular friend group.

About a week or so after the green-lit projects were announced, I messaged this individual, asking if I could do behind the scene photos and transmedia (both are major roles), which is basically media marketing to draw people into watching the short film or documentary. I asked if they had someone in that role. Now the three type of responses you can get from a question asking about a position are yes, no, or I don’t know but I will find out. Now I assume that the majority of people reading this blog are normal individuals and would think that I would get a response that was one of those three answers. What I got was something on the lines of, “Why don’t you talk to us”, or “Why don’t you hang out with us”. He then followed up that response with a meme that had to do with an ostrich running through a small town. Again, you are not reading this wrong. Again this is not me making this up. This is a clear example of the pure immaturity and unprofessionalism that I had to deal with and was from a member of my “friend group”.

This story has a happy ending though, as I worked with two different groups and they took a risk by giving me a major role which was production design. For those of you who don’t know, a production designer is in charge of props, set design, and over sees things like wardrobe. Fortunately I only needed to worry about props and making sure that the set looked good. I worked with great professionals on both set, was treated as an equal, was respected and enjoyed working with most of the people on set (of course there’s always one you prefer to not work with again). That was an example of how young people can come together and work as a team of professionals to make the experience a great one.

There is another factor of going back to school when you’re ten years older than most of the people starting. That factor is dating and relationships. I never pursued a relationship with a female while being at school, and it wasn’t because I didn’t want to date. While there are many cases of large age differences between couples, after a certain age, you can potentially connect with someone on a deep level, however when you are thirty, and the females around you are closer to twenty, or twenty one, there is a greater chance of having a maturity gap, as well as a chance of having a gap in life experiences. Now yes females tend to mature faster than guys, although, that’s not always the case. While the maturity and life experience gap are factors as to why I wouldn’t pursue a relationship, I am also very uncomfortable with a large age gap in general. I wasn’t even comfortable with having feelings for someone whom there was a four year age gap. The largest age gap in which I have tried to pursue anything was a six year age gap, and that’s where I reach my limit of being comfortable. There would have to be such a strong connection that it wouldn’t matter, for me to pursue a relationship where the age gap was six years or larger.

A part of my reasoning is that, even as I write this, I am not financially successful, I don’t have my own place, and I don’t have a solid career. How can I try to get serious with someone who is young, may still be figuring out things in life, or have more of a drive and a plan for financial success. The important things need to line up, and we need to be able to be on a similar journey together. Even if I did have the confidence to pursue a relationship with someone outside of college, while still being in college, between struggling financially and dealing with an increasing workload, I don’t see how the relationship would work.

Throughout this blog I have talked about the negatives of being ten years older than most, but there is one advantage that I have. That advantage is the fact that I have struggled to figure out what I want to do throughout my twenties. I have gone through three previous programs and had eight years of working in retail. I knew that if I didn’t go through the program, and I failed, that I had nothing to go back to, as far as work was concerned. I realized by doing well in the program and pursuing opportunities after graduation, I could get my foot in the door, and work in the film and television industry. Even if I wasn’t a writer on a project or wasn’t part of a writer’s room, I would still be able to make money in the entertainment field. The drive to succeed and knowing the shit I had been through from eighteen to twenty-eight, drove me to get through all the crap the program threw at me. I know that eighteen year old me would never have gotten through the first year of the program. Maybe it was supposed to happen when it did, after all I do believe everything happens for a reason. How I got to believing that everything happened for a reason, is another story for another time.