No One True Way
A reflection on non-linear educational paths, online learning, and why different ways of getting there are not lesser ones.
I was a university dropout.
That is not usually the opening line people expect from someone with a PhD. It is also not the whole story.
My path through education has not been direct or tidy. It is not easy to explain in a short biography. I left a traditional undergraduate program after a motor vehicle accident. In the years immediately following the accident, I made several attempts to return to classroom-based learningwith varying degrees of success.
Eventually, I returned to school through online and blended learning. I completed a bachelor’s degree, then a master’s degree, and later a PhD.
From the outside, that path may look unusual. From the inside, it was simply the path that made learning possible.
Throughout most of the process, I was not the age people most often picture when they think of a university student. I brought with me years of lived experience which coloured my views and a tonne of baggage and bias that needed to be constantly identified and challenged.
For a long time, I thought I had to justify my non-linear educational path. I worried that taking longer, studying online, working while enrolled, needing support, or changing direction made my achievements seem less legitimate. I compared myself to people who followed a more traditional path through post-secondary education and wondered whether my route made me seem less capable.
I no longer believe that.
Different is not lesser
We often treat education as if there is one proper route. Finish school → Enrol full-time → Move through a program on a full-time fall & spring semester schedule → Graduate, then move on to the next thing (career or graduate school).
That route works for some people. It does not work for everyone.
People return to school as part-time students for many reasons. They may be working full-time, raising children, caring for family, managing their health, recovering from injury, changing careers, or figuring out what comes next. Some need a pause. Some need flexibility. Some need more time. Some need a different format entirely.
None of that makes their learning needs or experiences less valid than that of a student who followed a more traditional, classroom based model.
Online learning gave me opportunities that a conventional classroom could not. I could stay in my community and keep working. I could revisit course materials, learn at a pace that worked for me, and write my responses after I had time to think. Those features were not shortcuts. They were the conditions that let me take part.
The same lesson came through in my research. The students I worked with had acquired brain injuries, but no two experiences were alike. Their injuries happened in different ways. Their symptoms varied. Their relationships with technology, instructors, support systems, and course structures were different. What helped one person could be unhelpful for another.
There is a saying in disability communities: if you have met one person with a disability, you have met one person with that disability.
The same is true of education. If you have met one adult learner, online learner, or person returning to school after injury, you have met one person. You have not found a template for everyone else.
What the route teaches us
A different route can bring knowledge that is easy to overlook.
Adult learners often bring work experience, practical questions, and full lives outside the classroom. They often have a clear sense of why the learning matters to them. Disabled learners often become experts in access, communication, energy management, technology, and problem-solving because taking part requires it.
That knowledge has value.
It can make someone a more thoughtful colleague, instructor, researcher, designer, manager, or mentor. It can shape the questions they ask, the systems they notice, and the people they remember to include.
Education is not only about how quickly someone completes a program. It is also about what they learn along the way, what they bring into the room, and what they do with that learning afterwards.
My own path taught me to build systems and ask for help. It also taught me to question assumptions about access and notice when a system, not a person, is creating the barrier. Those are not side lessons. They are part of the education.
Make room for more stories
We need more room in education and work for people whose paths do not fit the standard timeline.
That means not treating a gap in education as a failure by default. It means not assuming online learning is easier or less rigorous. It means recognizing that some people need accommodations, flexibility, more time, or support. That does not make them less capable or their work less valuable.
It also means listening before deciding what someone needs.
A more inclusive approach does not need us to lower expectations. It requires us to stop confusing one way of learning, working, communicating, or progressing with competence itself.
There is no single right way through education.
What matters is finding a way to learn, contribute, and keep moving forward.