82-Year-Old To Get College Degree

CHICAGO (WBBM Newsradio 780)  -- May 21st will be a big day in the life of 82-year-old Bess Friedheim of the south suburbs.

She receives her bachelor's degree in Liberal Studies from St. Xavier University that day.

Friedheim says she's always wanted to go to college and so in her 60s, she enrolled.

Friedheim says that, when she's at school she doesn't feel her age. She says she feels just a couple of years older than the 20-somethings who are her fellow students. She says, "I love school. When I come in here, I sit down and forget I'm this old person."

The New York City native likes math, art and computers and says she's fallen in love with photography.

Her favorite professor is Monte Gerlach, who teaches art. Friedheim has taken every course Gerlach has taught, including Digital Imaging which she's taking this semester for a second time. She got an "A" the first time and is auditing the class this time because that last time she took it, "they only taught you Photoshop 4, but Photoshop 9 is available now. There's so much new stuff to learn".

And that's the thing about Bess Friedheim. She has an insatiable thirst for knowledge. She says she does not plan to work towards a master's degree but does intend to take more classes because, "there's so much to learn...you never could finish learning....there's just so much stuff".

Friedheim will graduate summa cum laude with a 3.94 grade point average.

Professor Gerlach says Bess Friedheim is "what everybody wants to be when they grow up".

Bess Friedheim says she has wanted to go to college since she was 17 years old. Even though she didn't start college until she was in her 60s, she says she still tried to learn everything she could, taking sewing and cooking classes, even a basic electricity class. She plans to take a tax course next semester at St. Xavier University.

The 82-year old former dental assistant, jewelry store owner and mother of three doesn't believe in letting life come to her. She says four years ago, she began learning Hebrew so that, when she was 80 she could have a bat mitzvah, traditionally a ceremony for 12-year old Jewish girls. Friedheim notes that, the rabbi pointed out at the ceremony that usually at bat mitzvah is about a girl "coming of age", but that in Friedheim's case, she was "becoming a sage".