Starting all over again

By JULIE MIDDLETON

Are you tired of giving everything to your husband, kids and job, but never having time for yourself and your passions, or a new career?

You're not alone, and in an effort to help older women - many of them baby boomers who left school at 15 - get the confidence, jobs and lives they want, Auckland University of Technology has piloted free seminars with the tantalising title Follow your passion - achieve your dream.

Three free seminars - a first for AUT - have been held, the most recent on Saturday. Sixty-six women have attended.

The programme, run out of the marketing department has tapped such a need that organiser Christine Prestwood, the manager of mature student recruitment, says AUT is looking at running the seminars three or four times a semester from next year, and introducing seminars for men.

The demand, she adds, points to a large number of women who want their lives to change but don't quite know how to go about it.

"The majority of these women are very lacking in confidence regarding their ability to take up tertiary study", she says.

"A large number have been at home raising children, or have worked part-time, and have never given a lot of thought to their own needs.

"As their children have become more independent, they are suddenly realising that a whole new future lies ahead of them - but their lack of self-confidence, and a lack of recognition of their own ability, is holding them back".

Adds AUT career counsellor Debbie Mallory: "A lot of them have done a lot of nurturing. They come in and want to do some sort of social work, continuing the nurturing.

"But when they do career counselling, they discover that there are other directions - information technology, health, human resources, public relations, marketing and things like that - they start to discover that they don't have to lean on the nurturing side of themselves".

The seminars require the women to confront things they may have never considered, such as identification of their life skills, work skills, their personality and values. "It's all about career planning - helping the women to discover who they are, and what their passions, values and interests are", says Mallory.

While the seminars are pitched at those who might like to study at AUT, says Prestwood, there's no obligation.

But statistics show just how many are seeking self-improvement: Prestwood says there has been "continual growth" in the numbers of older women becoming students - "women 40-plus are the highest number studying in tertiary education, which is absolutely mind-boggling." Fifty-eight per cent of AUT's student population is now aged between 22 and 60-plus.

"With the decreasing school-age population, mature age numbers are expected to increase even more over the next 10 years", she adds.

The comments of participants have been revealing, says Prestwood. Among them: "I've been looking for something like this for years"; "It's time to do something for myself"; "I'm sick of living on the breadline, I need to educate myself to get ahead".

Many of those signed up are in personal assistant and administration roles, she says, but include occupations ranging from sales assistant to bookseller. Just a handful - such as a primary school teacher - have tasted tertiary life before.

Mallory herself is a typical example of the women wanting to tap into their passions.

A single mum of three, she was 45 when she embarked on tertiary study. "I needed to do something with my life, but it was scary, coming in to a university".

She started off studying social work - but like so many other women, discovered that wasn't the sort of nurturing she wanted to do for a living.

She had a background in marketing, sales, and personnel, so drove them into a graduate certificate in career development, a two-year, part-time course: "That set me on my new direction".

* To enquire about the seminars, contact Christine Prestwood on 917-9908.