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With her salt-and-pepper hair and penchant for scribbling notes by hand, Delores Orr doesn’t quite blend in with most of the UC Berkeley undergraduates roaming the Cal campus, hunched over their iPhones or cruising on skateboards.
At 70, Orr is one of UC Berkeley’s oldest undergraduates — and a visible reminder that not every college student arrives at the same life stage and with the same goals.
Nationally, she’s part of a growing number of college students older than 25. But at elite universities like UC Berkeley, where there are relatively few such students, the Oakland resident initially felt like she didn’t belong on campus.
She decided to go to college in part because her granddaughter, then in elementary school, had been having a tough time at school and doubting her ability to succeed. “But you can,” Orr told her granddaughter. “I’ll show you.”
Her first day on campus, Orr recalled, she “panicked.” People were throwing around unfamiliar slang and talking, of all things, about the Kardashians. Students were glued to their laptops and partying in the dorms. They arranged 11 p.m. study sessions.
To keep from feeling like an imposter, Orr sat across from Sproul Hall and repeated “I am worthy” over and over again.
At 38, fellow student Gina Niceforo understands that feeling. After high school, the Boston native moved to Lake Tahoe to snowboard, waitressing to pay the bills. She liked school, but for years the idea of getting a bachelor’s degree seemed inconceivable, especially at a place like Cal.
“I needed to be convinced I had what it takes,” said the political science major who wants to get a master’s in higher education and work with students.
At first, imposter syndrome set in, but then she met a few other older students on campus and learned she wasn’t alone.
Now, Niceforo runs a student club that meets twice a week called OWLs, which stands for older, wiser learners. Attendance varies, but in any given meeting, anywhere from six to 20 “non-traditional” students gather to talk about everything from scholarships to fitting in to how to write a research paper after decades out of school.
The club is especially useful at a university such as Cal, where 95 percent of Berkeley’s undergraduates are under 25. Just 27 undergraduates are between the ages of 55 and 64, and just four are in the 65-74 range.
“Some people may feel that sense of being an imposter,” said Ron Williams, in charge of helping these older students succeed at Cal while balancing parenting, working and studying.
Many older students can’t rely on family to cover the rent or necessarily afford to take on unpaid internships. So Williams tries to help them navigate the resources buried in the vast bureaucracy that is UC Berkeley. He urges older students to let him know of non-academic issues they are facing so he can try to prevent any problems from derailing their college experience.
But keeping up with younger students can be a challenge, even for students who aren’t that much older than their peers. Josh Archer, a 29-year-old Cal student, often gets asked by younger students about where he parties.
“My party scene is me hanging out with my cat and a glass of wine,” chuckled the economics major who worked as a bartender but hopes to teach or work at a nonprofit. “I’ve never been called old so much in my life.”
In a recent study group, Niceforo repeatedly declined requests to download Snapchat.
“I think a 6-year-old probably knows more about computers than I do,” said Roxanne Gorman, a 38-year-old junior. After successfully battling alcoholism and homelessness for years, she decided to go back to school at UC Santa Cruz, which also has a low number of older students.
Going back to school is nothing new. In the bumps and bruises of a changing workforce, Americans have long been heading back to the classroom — around 40 percent of all college students are 25 or older — a number that is expected to rise in the coming years. But many of these students are at community colleges or earning MBAs or other advanced degrees at night. In the past decade, many students have pursued online degrees. However, there are fewer students like Orr and Gorman, who finds herself living in the dorms in her late 30s, full-time undergraduate students at elite universities geared toward young people.
“I’m sure people think I’m part of the faculty or staff,” she said, adding that one student told her she was old enough to be most students’ mother. “It is a little uncomfortable for me sometimes, but I stick it out.”
These experiences aren’t unique, and sometimes the interactions can be hurtful. One young woman saw Orr in the restroom and, apparently assuming she was a member of the janitorial staff, told her that the paper towels needed to be refilled. Students handing out fliers on campus don’t always extend one to older students.
“After awhile, it starts to wear,” Williams said.
“Our education systems are built around a lot of assumptions and norms based on students going to college right out of high school,” said Sara Radoff, who directs services for older students at UC Santa Cruz.
Still, Cheryle Teats, an undergraduate political science major at Cal who turned 66 in January, wouldn’t change her experience.
“I think when you’re this age, you go back to school because you want to learn something,” Teats, who worked as a pilot before deciding to study political science, said, “and I think it takes a lot of years before that’s the reason that you’re there.”
And, in a lot of ways, older students say, it can be nice to be around younger people.
“Friends say ‘What are you doing? How can you be around those kids?’ ” And I say, ‘How can I not?’ ” said Orr, an ethnic studies major who sees attending UC Berkeley as a way to deepen a lifetime of learning and is considering a master’s degree.
Professors appreciate having older students with more life experience in class.
“They bring a different perspective,” said Darren Zook, a political science lecturer at Cal. “Undergrads need to see you can have a life beyond Snapchat.”
Orr certainly does. By the time she arrived on campus, she had lived in Ohio, Arkansas and California, raised a son and retired after a long career as a clerk and letter carrier for the postal service.
She lived through Jim Crow, the AIDS epidemic and Watergate. She doesn’t need to rely on a textbook for background.
“They call me the living archive,” she said. “I love it.”
