The diversity of Winthrop’s campus is something many students have said that they are proud of, and this includes a diverse range of ages of students. Aside from traditionally aged students, there are 300-400 post-traditional students enrolled in the undergraduate program each semester. Post-traditional students are students aged 25 years or older.
Katie Sardelli, the director for Military, Adult and Transfer students, or MATS, works with post-traditional students and any challenges that they may face.
“When you look at post–traditional students, they’re a very varied group. Really, there’s no one typical post-traditional student. They really come from all walks of life. They really have a wide variety of experiences,” Sardelli said.
Sardelli said that creating a schedule for an adult student can be difficult. Sometimes post-traditional students have full-time jobs and families that they have to take care of. To accommodate these needs, Sardelli said that Winthrop tries to make evening classes available for certain courses. There is also an entire online HMXP section specifically for post-traditional students.
“Sometimes our post-traditional students find that, given the nature of the conversations in the course, they will get more out of talking to someone who’s had similar life experiences, whereas I’ve had other post-traditional students who have wanted to be in the classroom with traditional–aged students because they’re like, ‘these are going to be my colleagues when I get out,’” Sardelli said.
Susan Mitchell, a post-traditional audit student, said that she feels WInthrop is fairly successful at accommodating mature students.
“[The] only improvement [necessary] is more handicap spaces are needed,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell also said that decreased socialization and the age barrier between traditional students are factors that have affected her experience as a post-traditional student.
“Classmates are not friendly toward mature students and do not offer assistance,” Mitchell said.
Another difficulty that post-traditional students have said they noticed in their experience at Winthrop is not feeling a sense of belonging. Family-oriented events like an egg hunt in the spring are aimed at making post-traditional students feel included, according to Sardelli.
“We do try to do some family-friendly programming on campus. One of our biggest events for those students who may have families is a spring craft and egg hunt out on the Dinkins lawn. We invite you to bring your kids. We do an egg hunt. There’s crafts. There [is] a lot of paint and sugar. It’s a fun event to try to incorporate them [post-traditional students], as well,” Sardelli said.
Despite all of the challenges Mitchell said she faces as an adult student, post-traditional students said that they are highly dedicated to their educations.
“If you look at post–traditional students, a lot of the research says that they have a very high commitment to their academics. And if you were to chat with a majority of them, you would find that there’s a lot that they’re sacrificing. With our post-traditionals, I see a drive and determination as a whole,” Sardelli said.
