It's TED Talks Daily. I'm Elise Hugh. Sometimes amid the drudgery of work, I fantasize about going back to school.

I feel like I never got to do college long enough. And career coach Candice Navu has actually gone back and returned to school mid-career.

She wants more of us to do it, but in her 2023 talk from Ted X,

Royal Roads You, she offers ways going back to school at mid-career could be better after a break.

Isn't learning fun? I absolutely love it. For the past 15 years, I have been an academic writing instructor,

and I've been a coach for the last five. The people that I usually work with are adults

who've returned to school, and I really love working with these folks, because, well, like

them, I'm a lifelong learner, and I've been to school three times so far in the past 20 years.

But I still remember the first time that I went back.

I almost quit the first semester.

By midterm, I was collapsed into this shabby chair in my prof's office in the

corner in the midst of an existential crisis. Things were going horribly. The seminars that I so

diligently prepared for were painful. Every time we were asked for our responses and analysis of the readings.

Everyone else's responses sounded so smart.

Mine, by comparison, seems so basic.

And then I got my first paper back, and I'd bombed it.

Yep.

So there I was, in tears, convinced that I was the dumbest, least capable person in the class.

And honestly, I got to tell you, I was ready to quit. But I had actually staked a lot on going back to school.

I had actually quit my best job to date to pursue my dream of becoming an instructor.

So I wanted my prof's advice before I made any final decisions.

She handed me some tissues. and instead of agreeing with my

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