On the first day of class this semester, my instructor decided to play one of those cheesy get-to-know-you games to get everybody in the class more familiar with one another. The entire class was told to pick pairs and learn about our new partners and then asked to introduce each other in front of the entire class.

I partnered up with a girl who was sitting in the seat right behind me. She was a lot younger than me and was a little shy and nervous when I introduced myself to her, but after talking for a few minutes we seemed to get along just fine. I learned that she was fairly new to SRJC, having graduated high school last spring.

The one thing that was hard to overlook was the age gap between us, which spanned almost a decade. No one ever made a huge deal about it, but it was brought up more than once during the few minutes we had to chat amongst ourselves.

When the pairs began to go up to the front of the class and present themselves, she became more nervous and anxious. She had mentioned she got nervous in front of audiences and it was obvious she was getting pretty bad stage fright.

So when the time finally came, the presentation went a little something like this:

Me: Hi! This is Sara (Not her real name). She’s 18 and in her second semester at the JC and she wants to study Communications. She’s from Santa Rosa and went to high school around here too.

Sara: Um thanks… This is Eliot and he’s uh… pretty old…

The whole class started erupted into laughter and I immediately turned beet red with embarrassment. Of all the things I had told her about me, why did she have to pick that one? I had told her a lot of other things about me: where I was from, what I was studying, that I was a musician and a few other fun facts about myself.

While what happened was pretty hilarious in hindsight, there was something about the whole incident that struck a nerve. Why did she make such a big deal about my age? Is being in your mid-to-late twenties considered over the hill now?

I did a quick Google search. I was surprised to discover that, according to the American Association of Community Colleges, the national average age for community college students is 29. This figure seems a little bit high to me. I had always assumed the average age would be much younger; perhaps in the 21-22 age range.

This statistic also gave me a bit of comfort as well. Lately I’ve developed a certain insecurity about being older that the majority of my classmates. This notion began to bloom about three years ago when, at the age of 25, I took my first English 1A class since high school. I felt downright intimidated by my classmates. Most of whom were young, highly intelligent and were undoubtedly on their way to transferring to a four-year college.

Being surrounded in class by all these students who seemed like they were on the right path towards success made me feel very out of place. I didn’t go right from high school to college. I messed around for a few years, worked some mindless entry-level jobs. I learned first-hand why it is so important to go to college.

That first semester back I felt like I didn’t belong in school. At first, I was constantly comparing myself to my younger classmates who were much further ahead in school than I was. Eventually, I stopped paying so much attention to my surroundings and slowly my insecurities began to disappear. As time went on, I didn’t think about it as much. I got over most of my initial anxieties and put my focus into school again. As the semesters wore on, I stopped obsessing about how much older I felt than everyone else and began to enjoy myself much more.

It wasn’t until after that awkward first day of class this semester that I realized that I wasn’t looking at the big picture. And neither was my young classmate. Santa Rosa Junior College is a community college. One of the definitions for community is “a social unit that shares common values.”

From the injured war veteran to the single mom taking night classes so she can better support her kids, the SRJC student body is a wide and all encompassing entity. All types and kinds are welcome and regardless of our differences, we all come here to do one thing: learn.