My Midlife-Crisis Master’s Degree

“Do you own a CD?” 

“Do you know how to use a rotary phone?” 

“CD?”

“Rotary phone?” 

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. 

I am standing in the packed hallway of the Radcliffe Gymnasium for our ELOE [Education Leadership, Organizations, and Entrepreneurship] orientation. We are in the midst of a “people scavenger hunt,” trying to check off as many folks on our list who meet the requirements. It’s hard to tell who may have taught social studies or who has three siblings. Apparently, it’s not that difficult to tell that I do in fact own a CD (okay several Case Logic books full of CDs) and am currently having vivid flashbacks to my childhood kitchen, seeing the pencil marks on the dial face of our rotary phone and the effort it took to make a local phone call. Forget about long distance. 

To be honest, I didn’t expect my 40s to look like this. 

It’s so much better. 

I have been lucky enough to have spent the better part of my adult life writing books for kids and tweens. Starting in 2012, I published my first book in a YA historical fiction series called The Time-Traveling Fashionista, which has been translated into nine languages and is currently in development for television. The books are about a thrift store obsessed seventh grader, Louise Lambert, who is desperate to leave her humdrum suburban middle school life. Through the help of some magical vintage clothing, Louise travels back in time and experiences adventures beyond her middle school cafeteria. Like onboard the Titanic or in the gilded halls of the Palace of Versailles. Much like my 12-year-old protagonist, I never wanted to have an ordinary, linear life. 

After my novel’s publication, I started going into schools and speaking to kids about my books and the writing process. We played writing games, and I helped them create their own stories. After years of solitary writing, getting to interact with kids was so much more fun than I had anticipated. Through these publicity events I discovered that I loved connecting with young readers in their classrooms. Their creativity and imagination lit me up. Soon I was booking more and more school talks and classroom visits. 

I followed this new passion and started teaching with an award-winning nonprofit, Writopia Lab. Its mission is to foster joy, literacy, and critical thinking in kids and teens from all backgrounds through creative writing. After a few years I was an associate director and managing the Brooklyn region. I was teaching at a wide array of spaces: our labs, in schools, at museums, in juvenile facilities, and on Zoom. I saw firsthand just how powerful and universal writing is. But as I came to this meaningful work through my books, I didn’t have the educational foundation I felt like I needed to serve our kids the best way that I could. I felt stuck and like I needed a big life change. 

I realized that at 44, I wanted to go back to school. To friends and family, I called it my mid-life crisis master’s degree. 

So here I am at HGSE. 

In a way, like Louise, I am getting to time travel now, too. Being back in a classroom after 20-plus years feels like I am getting a second chance to do college. My first time around, at Tufts in 1998, I was filled with anxiety (well, technically, a yet-undiagnosed panic disorder) and worried about all the wrong things: grades, boys, tests, and not having class before 10 a.m. Now I know how lucky I am to be here, surrounded by a community of people who want to change the world through education. At 44, I still have some of my same hang ups I did at 20, but I also have the life experience and perspective that comes with a few gray hairs. When I got my first book deal, my editor didn’t ask to see my GPA. 

I’ve found the older I get the less often I put myself in situations where I am not an expert at something. I don’t think this is a good thing. Two weeks of the Evidence course made me see this. There were days when I went home frustrated and felt like I was reading another language of “RCTs” and “RDDs.” When I had to resubmit an individual readiness assurance test and still needed to make dinner for my stepson, I started to wonder why I was voluntarily subjecting myself to this. But presenting our team’s project on the last day to our supportive and brilliant TF who is younger than I am, I felt really proud of myself. I couldn’t think of a safer and more supportive space to embark on this work than here at HGSE. 

My stepson and I will both be graduating this spring, luckily on different weekends. He’ll be 22 and I’ll be 45 when we accept our diplomas. I imagine we’ll be celebrating in much different ways. (I, for instance, hope to be asleep by 9:30 p.m.) But what I wish for him is what I wish for all my young writers and readers: a lifetime of learning. And perhaps a life a little less ordinary. Maybe he’ll get his own mid-life crisis master’s degree one day, too. 

Bianca Turetsky is a current master’s student in the Education Leadership, Organizations, and Entrepreneurship (ELOE) Program