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Catherine Athearn (née Habershon)

CATHERINE J. ATHEARN
DECEMBER 2003 HABERSHON OF THE MONTH!

Yes, Habershons, friends, lurkers, whoever you are. This is my moment to bask in glory. I have graduated from the University of Houston with a degree in Economics (minor in Finance). Click here to admire my diploma. And yes! Unlike previous Habershons of the Month, I was available to give a lengthy interview! Here are the highlights:

Q What possessed you to continue your education at such a ripe old age?
A I beg your pardon?

Q Let me rephrase that. What made you decide to go back to school?
A Well. John and I went on a bike ride. We pedalled across the University of Houston campus on a sunny Sunday afternoon. It looked beautiful. One evening, a couple of months later, we had to drive his mother (a medieval history professor at UH) to her class as she had car trouble. We stayed to listen to her three-hour lecture on Anglo-Norman history.

Without warning, in the middle of the lecture, she looked at me and said, "and you're from England, Cathy. What can you tell us about William Rufus?" My mouth opened and closed as all the students turned around to hear what I had to say. My head hung in shame as I told her I'd never heard of him. At that moment I decided to go back to school.

Q How did you get in?
A I enrolled in something called the "Adult Admission Option" Program. You become an official student if you maintain a certain GPA for your first 18 hours.

Q We've heard that college tuition is extraordinarily expensive in America. How could you afford to do this?
A Ah HAH! Glad you asked that question. If you've lived in Texas for a year you qualify as a Texas resident and get reduced fees at UH. I actually kept a record of all my expenses during my years of study. I started in the Spring of 1993 and finished in the Summer of 2003. My total outlay, including parking, library use, books, pens, scantrons, etc., was $18,954.56. The only item missing from that figure is lost pay as a result of having to leave work early to attend classes.

Q Did you apply for any scholarships?
A No. But one fell in my lap and I didn't even know it. One semester, my fee bill arrived, and there was a credit on it for $500. I couldn't understand what it was, and called the Accounting Offices. They said it was Financial Aid. As I had decided against applying for a student loan, I ignored the credit, and paid the full amount of my tuition for that semester. About six months later the Economics Department called me and asked me when I was going to pick up my plaque. "What plaque?", I asked. "The plaque awarded to you with your scholarship. The Joel Sailors award," they said. It was then revealed that I had been awarded this scholarship by the Economics Department and not even told about it. I did some investigation and found that there was, indeed, a professor Emeritus of that name. I wrote a nice letter thanking him. It took a long time, however, to get the Acccounting Department to reinstate my $500 credit.

Q You were an Economics major (Finance minor) and you paid a bill that you didn't owe?
A Oh. Shut up.

Q How many classes did you take?
A I'm so organized. If you click here you can see a list of all of them, including the grades.

Q Very impressive.
A Thank you.

Q What does it mean when it says "3" under "HOURS"? Was the class only three hours long?
A No, silly. It means that there were three one-hour classes per week (or two 1.5-hour classes per week) for an entire semester.

Q Semester?
A (sigh) You Brits. A semester is a term. You obviously haven't been studying my English/American Dictionary.

Q How and when did you decide on your Major?
A It took a long time. Every class I took was so interesting that I thought it would make a good Major. The University of Houston kept sending me letters saying I needed to declare one, so in April 1994 I looked through the catalogue and wrote down every single Major on a long list. Then, over the next six months, every time Jeff Bagwell hit a home run I would cross one off the list. I narrowed it down to Accounting and Economics, and there was then a Baseball strike. I chewed it over for a couple of days and then settled for Economics.

Q Isn't that rather a frivolous way to choose a Major?
A No.

Q What was your most difficult class?
A It's a tie between Dr. Smith's "Statistics" and Dr. Rabinovitch's "Options & Futures."

Q Which class did you find most interesting?
A Another tie: Dr. Gurcan Gulen's "Economics of Energy" and Dr. Michael Murphy's "Physical Geology."

Q Which class did you dislike the most?
A Intro to Psychology (euchhh!)

Q How will having a degree change your career?
A It won't. I like my current job working for a right-of-way company.

Q Will you continue your education?
A Yes. But for now I'm enjoying having more free time.

Q Would you recommend your experience to other older people without degrees?
A Definitely. Do you know that during those eleven years I paid $47 a month for health insurance? All students paid the same, whatever their age. Now I'm having to fork out $210 a month for health insurance with a $5,000 deductible. So really it's cheaper to be in school than out.

Q Whew! That's a lot. You must be old.
A Ask me another question, pipsqueak.

Q Did anyone show up for your graduation?
A Yes. John, Sally (his mother), Michael (Sally's friend from Copenhagen), and Doug (owner of CHIQUI, an Indi Blue Cooper S). The Board of Mini Directors sent flowers, and Callie left two gifts on my doorstep (a Counting Crows CD and a book on the history of the Mini Cooper).

Q Oh. I'm sorry I couldn't make it. I was at work/I live a long way away/I couldn't stand the thought of sitting through three hours of watching students walk across a stage. [delete where applicable]
A That's okay. It's no big deal. No . . . really . . . it's not. Anyway, that wasn't a question.

Q Do you have any pictures of the graduation ceremony?
A Well, I do, but they came out blurred. This one was taken before I went to join the Economics group before we marched into the arena. This one is the march into the arena. So's this one. Here's another one. Not very exciting. There was an official photographer there, though. I'm not sure how it works, but he must be wanting to sell all the pictures he took. I'll post it here if it shows up.

Q And what do you now think of William Rufus?
A Well, er . . . actually, I never did take one of Sally's medieval history classes.

Q Well, congratulations on completing your degree.
A Thank you.