This paper provides a self-ethnographic investigation of a continuing education program in engineering in Central Finland. The program was initiated as a response to local economic structural change, in order to offer re-education possibilities for a higher educated workforce currently under unemployment threat. We encountered considerable difficulties both in relation to student motivation and our ability to engage the students. By comparing our observations and experiences with adult learning theory, and considering them in relation to economic structural change, we aim to raise issues that would benefit others. The main results of this study are that: (1) under the condition of structural change studying seemed to be externally motivated; (2) specialized work experience may have hindered self-direction in the acquisition of an academic orientation and skills; and (3) a transformation in student perspective, leading to perceiving the education provided as an opportunity, would have been required but was seldom observed.