Just Your Average 68-Year-Old College Freshman.

The team struggled frantically. But no matter what they tried his body wouldn’t climb above room temperature. The subject on the gurney remained unresponsive—he refused to breathe. There was zero probability, but they worked on.

Down on the floor it was a different story. As if upon signal, a traumatized accident victim, all splints and tourniquets, rose miraculously and traded places with the paramedic who had been attending her. There were no actual lives or limbs in danger but there was risk and urgency. The students needed to prove their knowledge and deftness to survive as paramedics.

Fire Science Technology (firefighters, emergency responders, paramedics) is one of many certificate programs that can lift a life above the minimum wage. After two or three semesters, the holder of a certificate can be a contender.

Many certificate students go on prosper in the trades, start businesses, create wealth and jobs. Many of them become the intensely motivated, street-savvy, forty-year-old freshmen who ask for nothing but the opportunity to eat your lunch.

The Fire Science instructors were happy to let me hang around. They wanted me to climb on the gurney and take the place of the dummy. They said they would bring me back to life.

Just Your Average 68-Year-Old College Freshman

Exquisite creatures of all colors and shapes prance about. Snap your fingers, rainbows appear. Fruits are low-hanging. Constipation has been eradicated. This is a new and wondrous place.

Our professor, who signs emails with her first name, asked us to pull our chair-desks into a circle—so each of us can share opinions, they are all equally important. We’re going to talk and discuss and debate and then interview each other. We’ll read body language as well as textbooks.

All of my earlier schooling happened before everything changed. I have no idea what to expect. This is exciting. This is why I’m here.

Just Your Average 68-Year-Old College Freshman

I always knew this would be a humbling experience.

One afternoon a group of us were grinding away at geological map data. I whipped out my Pilot G2 Writing Instrument (6 for $7.29, Target) and solved a long-division percentage calculation by hand, citing the number of feet in a mile off the top of my head—I wasn’t showing off, this was grade school stuff for my generation. I knew I was being watched. “You’re a genius!” a young woman sighed toward me.

Moments of triumph are often fleeting. Within seconds, He-Who-Doesn’t-Give-A-Flying-Expletive announced that my answer was wrong, wrong, wrong—almost instantly he had stumbled upon a childishly, embarrassingly, pathetically simple solution to the problem. To make things worse, He-Who was right.

I always knew this would be a humbling experience.

Just Your Average 68-Year-Old College Freshman.

It’s impossible to borrow lecture notes from someone who calls you “Sir.”

As a sir, you’ll have trouble rounding up partners for group projects. Sirs don’t sit on hallway floors with the other students, no matter how willing their knees might be. Sirs should avoid making jokes (the kids won’t laugh, or worse, they’ll laugh too hard).

They’ve had a lot of experience with sirs and ma’ams. They know about our penchant for offering advice and insights— especially when not solicited. They give us a wide berth.

But if you can be patient—and if you let it be known you got the lowest score on a recent lab quiz—they’ll reward you with a bit of cred. Eventually a kid named Ian will call you by your first name and you can risk humor again. In small doses.

Just Your Average 68-Year-Old College Freshman.

The “Freshman Fifteen” is shorthand for the pounds kids put on during their first year at college.

They line up in front of all-you-can-eat dormitory buffets, desserts included. Between meals there are chips, pastries, sugar-glazed sugar and fried salt. There’s even an industry that ships snacks to remind students their parents wuv them.

Academic stress plays a role too—adrenaline and cortisol spike. Eat something! The eight-hundred-pound gorilla is alcohol. There are rumors about keggers but somehow I haven’t gotten invited to any. What’s that about?

Freshman gain an average of 8 pounds in their first year—some even more. Most of them work off their Freshman Fifteen before they work off their student loans, which really isn’t saying much.