Last week, after a failed orientation at UCR, I called my dad to just get the emotion out of me. He and I don't always see eye to eye, and I know that when faced with dilemmas he would rather seek a solution instead of just listen, but whenever life bites me in the ass, I know I can always call him. I found the words just spilling out of me even as I cried in frustration right in the middle of the UCR quad.

They don't have classes for people who work. I know, they said they did. Nothing in the evenings and weekends. There is no way for me to complete a degree here. I asked, Dad. Even the psychology advisors can't believe admissions accepted me knowing that I work full time. It isn't a school for people who work.

The admissions and counseling staff were filing past me as I sat under a huge, shady tree, doing my best to cry in a dignified way. They were heading home. They've done their jobs, held up their hands, and said, "There's nothing we can do. We're sorry that you feel that you did not receive the information you needed before you submitted your SIR fee. It is non-refundable." It was time for them to go home, but I wasn't quite ready to quit.

Neither was Dad.

Don't they know they are messing with people's lives? After everything you've done for this? Changing jobs, changing majors? Trig?

Trig was a sore for us all. I had just finished teaching myself Trig during the summer, unhelped by a professor with no teaching capabilities and school tutors who didn't understand why I didn't understand the subject as taught. I escaped with a B+.

But Dad has been witness to it all. The late nights, the anxiety, the studying, and when I had to change majors, the defeat in knowing I had come so far only to stop and do it all over again. When I mentioned I was stressed or tired in the beginning, he told me that I had to find a way to make it work, because this is what I had signed up for.

Now I could tell he wasn't so sure of that.

I could hear him tell me not to quit, and to keep being determined. It was what had got me all those As, after all. Its what got me into UCR anyway. And Cal Poly Pomona. And Cal State Fullerton, and Cal State San Bernardino, and University of La Verne. I had just been...misinformed. I had to find another solution. Juggle the future again. Like always.

But it has gotten tiring. I am 36 years old, and my love for school and patience for overcoming obstacles is wearing thin, because the obstacles I seem to be facing are coming from the structures of high education built for young adults who flounder outside the stringent structure of High School. They are also structures put in place when dealing with thousands of people who may come and go like the wind. They're numbers. If you don't know the answers to the questions you didn't know to ask, its your fault.

It is only through painful experience that you learn what questions to ask counselors who just want you out of their office so they can get through the workday. It is only through missteps and brick walls that you learn you can't finish your Early Childhood Education program because you didn't know that there were classes that required you to miss work. It is only after misinformation that you realize that, yet again, you need to take another math class to meet a requirement that you didn't know about. It was only after you pay your $250 non-refundable fee to UCR, and filled out all their paperwork, and gone to all their events and orientations and tours, and take days off work, and email and call endless counselors and advisors, and even get your student ID, that you learn that you are not the type of student that this school caters to.

No wonder so many students quit. All they want is to get ahead and they keep getting shoved behind.

I think I was the one who said that.

I could tell that Dad was getting agitated, and he was driving. I told him I'd hang up because I wanted him to be focused on what he was doing. He said he'd driven angry before. A lot of things get resolved in the car when you own your own business. When you are in charge of important things, solutions always need to be at the ready. It didn't matter if you were angry or driving.

You can't let them get you down. I know you can find a way out of this. If they don't give you that money back, I will. You can't stop now.

I know Dad has always had my back, but I know Dad won't always have my back. He's getting close to retirement, and I am at the age where I'm seriously thinking about my own. That was one of the reasons why I decided to change careers. Fashion doesn't give you a pension. It is hard to save when you always have to have and be the Next Big Thing. I'm 36. I can't go back into my 20s and make me be the traditional student I should have been.

That doesn't mean I should be punished for it. And sometimes that's what these obstacles feel like. You should have known. You should have done this instead of that. Why didn't you know what you didn't know? Figure it out.

I know that I will figure it out eventually. I know that when I get knocked down, to get back up, because no one is going to help me up. But I also know that some people are not that resilient, or don't know how to be. Some people who face these problems are lured by the promise of a better tomorrow if only they commit, but don't understand what that means. And they certainly don't know what to do when those who are supposed to help and support them don't.

As long as this keeps happening, more and more students will turn away from education. I can understand now why a 45 year old friend who wants to get out of a rut refuses to sign up for school, because its too late. I can understand why a mother of three doesn't want to complete her degree because she doesn't have time to "figure it out." I can understand why someone my age, who has only ever worked what they could with a high school degree, refuses to go to college now: because its too hard to figure out what to do.

These are people with established lives and kids and everyday hurdles that need attention, and definitely don't need more hurdles piled on top of them.

I definitely didn't need the hurdle set before me. I am now without a school, and am out near $500 after the last bout of admissions fees, plus the fees paid to UCR. I could feel the research opportunities and sought after professors and community activities slipping away. That beautiful campus wasn't going to mean anything to me. Trig was for nothing. I had moved to a new city for UCR. But now what could I do? All the deadlines had passed, so I could not apply to any other UC or Cal State school. If I wanted to attend one of those, I would have to wait until next fall.

My life would be pushed back another year. I'd be falling behind another year.

I hung up with my Dad and cleaned myself up. I was pretty much alone at that point, standing in the middle of UCR. It felt a little like Disneyland at this point. Carefully crafted and manicured, but you know there's a disembodied Mickey head hidden somewhere behind the false building fronts of Main Street. But Dad was right. There was a solution out there. It wouldn't be the one I wanted. I had them ready. Just in case.

I called a phone number I'd saved from last fall, when I had started applying to schools, seeking to transfer. It was the end of the day, and I didn't expect anyone to answer.

They did.

Hi, yes, this is Jennifer. Thanks for taking my call. I have a unique predicament, and was hoping if you could tell me if enrollment is still open. It is? School starts at the end of October. Do you have night and weekend classes?

You do.