Should I be worried by the fact that I'm essentially brain dead?

Next month will mark 21 years since the last time I was officially a student (that's how long it has been since John Carroll University, in a stunningly ill-advised move, conferred upon me a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and History).

I was a pretty darned good college student. And that's because I learned the system.

I learned the secret to getting an "A" in every one of my courses while working nearly full-time and juggling the other everyday responsibilities of life.

I'll let you kids in on what that secret is right now.

(I'm not even sure I'm supposed to be telling you this, but what the heck.)

The secret to academic success and getting good grades is...do the work.

If your professor assigns you reading to do before the next class, do the reading. If you have a paper due next Wednesday, write it and turn it in on time. If you're attending a lecture, pay attention and take notes.

Amazing, right? Like, I should put this into a book and sell it. I'll make millions!

The point being that there IS no secret. There's absolutely no substitute for hard work in school. So work hard and you'll be fine. Don't cut corners. Is that clear? I hope so.

Of course, that assumes your mental faculties are reasonably sharp. And mine were sharp in my late teens and early 20s. I could absorb new material at an astounding rate and spit it back out perfectly in a two-hour exam or 20-page paper. I was just good at it.

But now I'm finding that's not the case anymore.

I know this because I've been taking review classes in an attempt to gain my APR certification through the Public Relations Society of America. APR stands for "Accredited in Public Relations," and as I've explained to people who've asked about it, earning it is the equivalent in my field of saying, "Yes, I know what I'm doing."

The APR process consists of two major elements:

* A one- to two-hour "readiness review" in which you present a PR plan to a group of seasoned professionals to show you understand the elements of research, planning, execution and evaluation.

* A three-hour computer exam in which you answer multiple-choice questions about the art and science of public relations.

I'm not sweating the readiness review, really. That should be fine. It's that darned test that has me a little worried.

Mostly because I am stunningly good at selecting the wrong answer on multiple-choice questions. It's like I have a God-given talent for being wrong. I defy the Law of Averages and all of its corollaries.

And you just know they'll throw some tricky questions in there. Like the ones where answer A and answer B both sound right, and one of your choices (answer C, the one you should apparently always default to if you're not sure) is "Both A and B." I HATE THAT! DARN YOU, TEST-MAKERS!

Then there's this: As part of the very helpful series of review classes I'm taking, we have to read significant chunks of a textbook called "Cutlip & Center's Effective Public Relations." This book is something of a bible in my industry, and it's pretty comprehensive.

It's also, as I say, a textbook. It has been two decades since I've had to read and retain material from a textbook. Let's just say that my abilities in this area have slipped in the interim.

Quite a bit.

There was a time when I could read a 20-page chapter once through and tell you all of the salient points, including what was most likely to be on the ensuing quiz.

Now I read a 20-page chapter (twice), and if someone asks me what it was about, I'll say, "Well...it was kind of....you know, the chapter really covered....basically....I think it was about public relations. Or something business-related. One or the other. I think."

I can't retain anything I read. And I can't tell you how much this distresses me. Is it because I'm 43? I mean, 43 isn't really old, right? It's early middle age. One should not be exhibiting symptoms of advanced dementia at 43.

But then again, I can never remember why I walk into a room anymore. So why I think I should be able to read a textbook at 43 like I could when I was 22, I don't know.

We have two more review classes, then I'll probably have my readiness review in June and take the computer exam before the end of summer. In the meantime, I have a lot of material still to go over and absorb. And I'm not sure I'm up to it.

I just read a chapter from "Effective Public Relations" earlier today, and the only thing I can tell you is that it was generally about public relations.

Or business.

One or the other.

I think.