For many adults, going back to school seems too difficult in their busy daily lives. Majoring in a field they’ve always dreamed of seems even further off.
By Jennifer Aanerud Contributing writer
Leo Dombrovski has a good life. He has three daughters and three grandchildren. He owns his own businesses in property management and general contracting and also works for another property management company. After his mother passed away last October he realized that it was time to make a change in his life. He suddenly felt like his window of opportunity to make this change was shrinking and it was now or never. Dombrovski has returned to school and is attending ARCC.
Many adult students find themselves in this situation. Things are going well and then something happens in life that is a catalyst propelling them to realize that they want more, or to now pursue that dream they always had, or to fulfill a destiny. Many adult students have taken college classes before and some have degrees. Some students, such as Dombrovski, never liked high school so they never thought they would even pursue a degree to begin with.
“I hated school with a passion,” Dombrovski said. His father convinced him to go to college a year after graduating high school in 1979 to pursue a degree in mechanical design. Like many adults, Dombrovski did not find a job in his field. He got married and had children. Supporting a family took the main role in his life for many years.
Dombrovski went back to school from time to time. One time it was to pursue a job as a low voltage technician for a company he was working for. But after a semester into the program the company backed out of their obligation to put Dombrovski through school and so he dropped out. Dombrovski, now 55, found himself in a situation where he felt like it was time to pursue a degree for his own growth. He ended up enrolling at ARCC because it is close to his work.
After having completed an Associate’s degree early on in his life, Dombrovski ran into a problem that many adult students who come back to school face where very few of his credits transferred and he is now having to start all over. Dombrovski went to a meeting one evening for adult students and ended up being the only student who attended. It was here where he met Jan Pomeroy who heads the Office of Adult Transition at ARCC’s Coon Rapids campus.
This meeting would set Dombrovski on a path he never expected. One of the things that the Office of Adult Transition specializes in is to help adult students translate real life experience into actual credits. They are still in the process of this but Dombrovski is thrilled that he is able to use some of his own experiences for credit and won’t have to start from scratch.
Another thing that Pomeroy worked with Dombrovski on is to help him to realize that he could pursue his dream of becoming a nurse. Dombrovski felt encouraged that someone like Pomeroy could understand his struggles firsthand as she herself was also an adult learning, going back to school later in life to pursue a degree.
The Office of Adult Transition is geared toward helping non-traditional students who are: adults returning to the classroom after a period of time in which their formal education was interrupted, just beginning their education at a later point in life, changing careers, want a credential (certificate or degree), and/or are retired.
Dombrovski has a good support system around him. He has his wife, his children, and his in-laws. He has one daughter who is a nurse. She is a great resource for him. He feels like his life experiences have led him to where he is at.
Even though he has this support system he said that he “isn’t looking for anyone to support me but to understand what I’m going through.” Dombrovski was closely associated with the death of his parents and his older brother. In 1993, Dombrovski helped to care for his dying father. The hospice nurses cared for his father for a few hours a day but the family had to pick up where the nurses left off when they were gone. Dombrovski took on this responsibility and administered his father’s medications and feedings when the nurses were not there. He said it felt natural for him to care for his family in that way.
For Dombrovski, he has a passion. A passion to succeed. He says he wants to do something that is “rewarding to just to me but to the people that I can help and in turn I am getting a reward out of that.”