Life’s Decades - The Third 10 Years

Today I am focused on the third decade of life - typically the decade to finish a college degree and get started on a career. For me - it was mostly in the 1970s.

In my case it was done concurrently. I worked full time and went to school part time while my husband continued in school full time. It took me most of the decade to get an undergraduate degree in Biology and then a masters in Mathematics. I don’t remember reading for pleasure or watching very much television; there wasn’t any extra time. For a few years, my husband and I would meet for dinner so that we’d see each other during the week before late night!

The big pivot point in the decade was deciding to not continue in Biology for graduate school but to switch to Mathematics (Computer Science) which was the field I was working in for the whole decade. My employer paid most of the cost of the masters. Within a few months of my decision make a career in the computer field, we bought our first house.

We were on quite a budget the whole time. I made almost all my clothes and a good portion of my husband’s shirts; in those days it was a good way to save money. The flood of discount clothes from third world countries had not started yet. Sewing was no longer a money-saving endeavor by the next decade and is not a strategy to economize now.

Most of our vacations were between semesters or long weekends. We went camping in national (Mesa Verde, Rocky Mountain, and Grand Canyon) and state parks - cooking our own food over campfires. When we first started we simply took blankets and pillows and slept in the car! Sometime we had to share the space with a telescope. Foods were simple (hot dogs, cans of pork’n’beans, cookies) but later we got fancier (steak, corn on the cob, baked apples)….and all along there were s’mores. Later in the decade we acquired a tent, better sleeping bags, a Coleman stove and lantern. And we enjoyed canoeing on the Brazos and Guadalupe Rivers. Camping is still a viable way to vacation frugally and I’m sure there are people in the third decade of life that enjoy it still - but I realize that it has not kept up with population growth. Why is that?

Both of my grandfathers died while I was in my 20s while the grandmothers continued on. The grandfathers had both lived into their mid-70s. Demographic statistics tell us that people are living longer now but many people have their children later like I did. My daughter is in her 20s now and still has one grandfather (who is in his mid-80s); her husband only has one grandmother left and she is 90. What a boon of modernity in the developed world to have a high probability of grandparents living to see grandchildren reach to adulthood!

When I sum up my 3rd decade I think: 10 years for me to get a masters and, concurrently, start my career…and my husband to get a PhD. 

Life’s Decades - The Second 10 Years

Today I am focusing on the second decade of life. I think of it as the growing up decade. For me it spans the end of elementary school to the first years of college mostly in the 1960s; it also includes getting married near the end of the decade.

In the US the whole K-12 structure is still in place. The public schools I attended did not have air conditioning until my senior year. I assume that all schools in the hotter part of the country are air conditioned at this point. There are also more options in the classroom. The tools and resources available to teachers are dizzying to an outsider.

But even when I was in school there were experiments. I participated in an Up with People high school that traveled across the US during my junior year of high school. There were written evaluations rather than grades…and a musical show to perform several times a week. It was my first time away from home and probably the most perspective broadening year of life.

My senior year I was back home and in another experimental school - this time a public high school that was just opening that offered clusters of focused instruction. I spent three hours focused on biology and three hours learning to program (Fortran and Cobol) in the afternoon. I took an English course in-between the two.

There was also some self-paced learning although it was mostly in reading/comprehension and all paper based. Now computers make it easier to provide enriched and self-paced lessons on a wide variety of topics.

Is there a shifting of emphasis that has occurred over the years? The technology may push students toward faster pacing and shorter duration tasks. But maybe that is what is needed for their future work environments. I hope critical thinking is still underlying the other content.

I don’t remember a lot of teen age angst.

Part of it was my mother going back to college when I was in my teens and sharing her experiences with the family. That sharing resonated with me. It became a natural introduction to college life years before I went myself. A similar thing happened with my own daughter and myself when she was in her teens but focused on women in technical fields (like I was).

Being away from home during my junior year was another factor. Whatever chafing might have developed during that year had I been at home, didn’t have a chance. By the time I came back, I was mature enough to get along with both my parents.

But then came an unexpected pivot point. As soon as I started thinking about college in my middle teens I assumed I would wait to get married until after I finished. But I met the right person for me about mid-way through my senior year and we married a year later.

I used my computer skills to start a career to support us. He worked one semester and then became a full time student. I worked full time and went to school part time…but that story is better told in the next installment about the third decade.