What do you want to be when you grow up?

It was 12 years ago this spring when I was locking down where I wanted to go to college, combing through the acceptance and rejection letters and trying to figure out where I wanted to spend the next four years of my life.

Glossy handouts filled with pictures of smiling students, (most looking like a Benneton ad to stress the college or university's commitment to diversity) triumphant student-athletes and kindly professors crouched down next to eager young minds sat on my dresser through the early part of the summer.

In reality, I wasn't quite ready to be out on my own without much supervision and things went off the rails in the final semester in the spring of 2000. This is no one's fault but mine, but all of the warnings of the difficulties of those who don't finish college are starting to carry some weight, especially with the economy taking the plunge it has.

According to the 2005 census, roughly three in four Americans do not have a college degree (26 percent in the Midwest) but that's not much help when applying for jobs without any in-roads. Chances are, most of my resumes for higher level positions are automatically dumped when they reach the "some college" check box.

This is turning into the week to rectify that. With free tuition for family members as part of my wife's benefits package, we've been talking about when I'll be headed back to school to finally knock out the three remaining credits.

Involved with that process is getting old transcripts - which honestly are so terrible they should be sent in a lead-lined pouch to protect the good people of FedEx, maybe double-bagged to be on the safe side - and getting my ducks in a row with the new school here at home.

Starting Friday, I'll be meeting with an admissions counselor to map out the plan, which includes officially applying and figuring out which credits will transfer and which will not as well as any real life experience that can be applied for course credit.

I'm feeling an odd sense of uncertainty as I face college essays for the second time in my life and have been posing random questions to myself to try and prepare for the onslaught of questions like "If you could have dinner with three people, living or dead, who would they be?" and "Tell us about your most rewarding summer job." I wonder if there is a different application for those who aren't carded at bars anymore.

Stranger still is the blank check I've been given for education, courtesy of my wife's position at the university. In theory, I could rack up degrees for every major offered if we became independently wealthy and decided we never wanted to own a home, have children or eat.

After a series of dumb mistakes made by a teenager who knew everything and was positive that things would just work themselves out - which, to an extent they have - I'm facing the same questions I did a dozen springs ago.

What do I want to be when I grow up?

As much as I rail on about the sanity of asking teenagers to choose a career path when they've seen so little of life and the need for Americans to adopt some European ideas about taking a few years off after high school in the name of better decisions in college, things aren't that much clearer today.

While I'm now certain that I have no interest in a long-term career that involves sitting at a desk, the rest of the picture is still a little fuzzy. I've been a reporter, an editor, a service tech, a classroom tech with an emphasis on user instruction, a tour guide, a bouncer, a part-time bartender and a project manager for an audio-visual install shop. God help the admissions counselor who has to try and sort out that mess.

It's funny that after years of trying to chart career success based on the most palatable type of work as measured against the highest rate of pay, I still think I'd love those jobs that fall through the cracks and aren't at the top of most lists.

So, when push comes to shove Friday, I'll be looking to wrap up my English degree officially, with history courses if I need to fulfill a time requirement in classrooms here.

That's assuming that monkey trainer, astronaut or professional athlete degrees aren't added to the academic menu between now and December.

(Image from: myLittleScraps.com)