August 2024. I walked back into a classroom four years older than almost everyone else sitting in it. My former high school batchmates had all graduated college by then. I hadn't. And in a strange twist, one of my actual college instructors turned out to be someone who used to be my classmate back in senior high.
That's not a comfortable position to be in, if I'm honest. But it's exactly where I found myself, and I want to explain the real reason I went back — because it wasn't the reason most people assume.
The First Attempt, and Why It Fell Apart
I'd actually tried college once before. After discovering how much I genuinely enjoyed accounting in senior high, taking up BS Accountancy felt automatic. My mother and my girlfriend convinced me to enroll even while I was already working, since the program was modular — I figured I could keep my job and study at the same time.
The first term was manageable, mostly a refresher of senior high material. The second term broke that illusion completely. Subjects got harder, terminology I wasn't familiar with piled up, and the workload demanded more self-study than I could realistically manage on top of a full work schedule. On top of that, I wasn't a scholar, so tuition came directly out of an already-thin paycheck. Between exhaustion and financial strain, something had to give.
I chose to stay employed and step away from school. It felt like the responsible choice at the time — I genuinely couldn't sustain full-time study without an income, and I wasn't willing to let my mother, who was already covering most of our household bills, carry more of that weight.
The Pressure Nobody Says Out Loud
Choosing to step away from school didn't mean the pressure disappeared. My mother caught it constantly from relatives — questions about why I wasn't studying, what exactly I was doing with my life. I could feel how much that pressure weighed on her every time someone asked what year level I was in. Our parents don't usually hold onto much pride beyond the education they were able to give us, and not having a finished degree meant she carried some of that unfinished business too, even when she never said so directly.
Why I Actually Went Back
Here's the part that surprised even me: it wasn't ambition, and it wasn't really about proving something to relatives asking uncomfortable questions. By the time I decided to go back in 2024, I already had four years of real experience — freelance bookkeeping, corporate work, side businesses, some successful, most not. I wasn't returning because I lacked skill or knowledge.
I went back because there were specific things I genuinely wanted to pursue — certain roles, certain opportunities — that were structurally closed to me without a degree. Passion and hands-on experience had gotten me remarkably far in freelance bookkeeping, where a degree isn't mandatory. But plenty of accounting-related corporate roles are non-negotiable on that requirement, no matter how solid your actual experience is. I'd hit that wall directly, more than once, applying to accounting-related BPO jobs while still degree-less.
The real reason wasn't insecurity about being "behind." It was recognizing that a piece of paper was still standing between me and specific doors I wanted open, regardless of how capable I already was on paper otherwise.
Sitting With the Discomfort of Being "Late"
Walking into that classroom four years older than my classmates wasn't easy to swallow. There's a specific kind of self-consciousness that comes with being visibly behind schedule in a system that measures progress by age and year level. But by that point in my journey, I'd already survived enough rejection, failure, and financial struggle that this particular discomfort felt manageable by comparison.
I wasn't chasing a timeline anymore. I was closing a specific, practical gap that had already cost me real opportunities.
What I'd Tell Someone in the Same Position
If you're sitting on an unfinished degree, feeling like it's "too late" or that returning would be humiliating given how far behind you already are, I'd ask you to separate two things: the emotional discomfort of being older in the room, and the actual practical value of what finishing would unlock for you. Those are two different problems, and only one of them is actually about you being "behind."
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Mahal na mahal kita. Mahal na mahal ka ng Diyos. Faith without action is Fiction.