As a non-traditional student, the return to a university campus after an extensive absence has been an exhilarating, as well as, daunting experience.

Exhilarating from the perspective that each day I walk from building to building and class to class, I experience deep inner feelings of contentment, excitement and expectation.

The emotions I feel are the result of making the decision to come back to school and finish my bachelor’s degree. This decision was achieved after many years of thought and deliberation. Sacrifices had to be made in order for this dream to become a reality. The experience has made me aware that various degrees of rejection, isolation and loneliness accompany this transition, both on the homefront as well as the university campus.

One of the numerous challenges I expected to encounter coming back to school was learning to use the personal computer. To most of the young men and women this is no big deal and is certainly not seen as a challenge.

On the other hand, as seen through the eyes of a non-traditional student, let us remember computers did not exist as we know them today when we (non-traditional students) graduated from high schools and colleges in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. It has been the last eight years or so that computer technology has began to be established within offices at work, in schools and in our homes.

What I did not expect to find were the continuous dead ends encountered when searching for a tutor to help me through the introductory computer class I was enrolled in through the College of Agriculture. When an individual is computer illiterate, the seemingly unpretentious word introductory’ quickly becomes synonymous with those on the level of advanced calculus.’ I can laugh now at this analogy; however, I was not laughing at the time. I was desperately seeking help on this campus and not finding it.

I have spoken to numerous campus administrators concerning my plight. Each individual I spoke with expressed a genuine interest in what I had to say and was concerned with finding a solution so others did not go through what I did. Unfortunately, the solution is not simple or quick.

My suggestion was to create an assessment process to use as a tool’ in order to more accurately assess an individual’s computer literacy, and place them in an appropriate skill-level course when enrolling at this campus and taking computer classes for the first time. College campuses have utilized English and math placement tests for more than 20 years to place students in appropriate skill-level courses with enormous success why not initiate a computer placement test as well? After all, computer technology has become a permanent fixture in society. College professors expect and assume students have basic computer proficiencies in order to compete effectively in their classes. It would be advantageous for the University to champion this initiative.

Apparently, therein lies the problem. Currently, inefficiencies and duplication of services exist. Unless there is a type of centralized control management’ for computer courses offered at this University and utilized by all the individual colleges that currently exist, this concept cannot be created or managed to its greatest advantage. A possible solution would be to follow the example of several other Illinois universities, which includes as a general education requirement, a computer literacy course overseen by the Computer Science Department. Without communication and unification among the colleges, computer placement tests will not be designed, implemented or utilized at this University.

In summation, non-traditional as well as traditional students, that are lacking computer skills and are placed in core-curriculum computer classes will continue to struggle independently or drop out. In recent years, the non-traditional student population on this campus has hovered around 35 to 40 percent of the total enrollment. This is a significant number of the student population that could ultimately utilize a computer assessment program. I do hope the wheel of education continues to turn, albeit slowly, toward the realization of this goal through communication and unification amongst the administrators and staff within the individual colleges at SIUC.

junior, plant, soil and general agriculture