NONTRADITIONALLY TRADITIONAL
Hello, my name is Paige and I am a student here at CCU; a nontraditional student to be exact, majoring in Communication. This article is to raise awareness of nontraditional students, to provide an open forum for both traditional and nontraditional students, and to embrace the positive aspects of the diversity on our campus.
Speaking of nontraditional, just what does nontraditional mean? Nontraditional means anything other than what is considered normal or typical. For a student to be considered typical, they would attend college following high school graduation. The nontraditional student is anyone who attends any time other than that; or over the age of 21. This leaves a broad range of students who fit into the nontraditional status, even here at CCU.
The CCU Undergraduate Demographic Reports for 2008 and 2009, provided by the Institutional Research, Assessment and Analysis Department, provides information regarding the CCU student makeup. While the majority of students fit into the traditional status, non-traditional students in 2009 represent 29%. This can be further broken down to reflect that students ranging in age 22-25 make up 21.34% and students aged 26+ make up 7.7%.
Additionally, an interesting fact from the reports show the majority of students are female. CCU, in 2008, had a total of 7,573 students, 4,008 were female (52.9%); 443 more (or 5.89%) females than males. Likewise in 2009, CCU had a total of 7,920 students, 4,220 were female (53.28%); 520 more (or 6.5%) females than males. As you can see, there are myriad issues and questions that could be posed and pondered for those who care to do so, such as: Why should I care about nontraditional students?; Why do they go to college?; Does it matter if I communicate with a nontraditional student?; Are there more female nontraditional students than males?
Obviously CCU diversity is vast with matching issues and questions. I venture to guess that everyone here has been enlightened with a new idea/subject/issue/fact and eagerly looks for the next. If this sounds like you then you are hereby invited to join me in such a quest and hopefully we will all enjoy the journey and use it in all aspects of our lives.
