Ask HN: 42 years old and in grad school: social asset or social liability?

>However, I've talked to other older students who have different experiences, such as difficulty integrating into student culture or getting help from professors/advisors.

I used to teach at a university and I'll tell you a personality trait that older folks had that either a) made them really valuable in class or b) made everybody dislike them. That trait was a willingness to talk and participate in the class.

Some were able to take their life/work experience and really help the other people in the class see how the theory learned in class could be used in a real job. Their class participation was useful and certainly other students wanted to talk with them and the professor would engage with them.

Other people used their "life experience" to talk about themselves, their dog, the kids, some tangentially related aspect of their job, etc. They perceived themselves as contributing, but really they were just talking for the sake of talking. Nobody wanted to engage with them. Certainly younger students don't care about any of those things, just like older students don't care about where the younger students hung out over the weekend. And as a professor maybe one of those older students could become a friend, but mostly they're just that extra-irritating person who takes up valuable time (both inside and outside class) and seems to have no reservations about doing do.

This is a good point. I remember when I was in grad school the first time there was a guy in his 50s or 60s who would ask long meandering questions that got on everybody's nerves. Nobody liked him.

In school I add value because of my programming skills. I can program better than the other people here, so people frequently come to me asking for help debugging their stuff.

Perhaps I need to present things differently when I talk to people? Or talk to different people?

Yes. Both.

But you also need to seek perspective. This question is an attempt to do that, but not a great way to do so. I have a history of asking such questions in life, and it winds up being an incredibly poor source of data or feedback.

Better to go reading up on the experiences of others, asking about the experiences of others, talking to people who express interest, etc.

Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you. -- Aldous Huxley

> Better to go reading up on the experiences of others, asking about the experiences of others, talking to people who express interest, etc.

True. That's what I'm doing, because a bunch of people here have expressed interest. I am curious why people thought it was interesting.

Most people won't actually be able to answer that.

I spent my twenties and thirties asking men who were hitting on me why they found me attractive. Men who had scads of education, even doctors, lawyers and people with two psych degrees, were shockingly inarticulate. They knew what they liked. They often had no fucking clue why they liked it.

I eventually threw my hands up in the air and concluded that men are all certifiably insane.

In my 40s during my divorce, I asked different questions, more targeted questions, about what men liked about me. That got me some interesting data, but it was better informed because I was asking better questions under different circumstances (since I was no longer asking "Why on earth are you hitting on a married woman?").

You are expecting people to have a deep and nuanced understanding of themselves that many people lack. You are further expecting them to be able to articulately express it. This is surprisingly unlikely, even if they meet your first very high bar and are generally well read, educated and well spoken individuals. (You are also expecting them to do it in public, which they may have good reason to not want to do.) You are further expecting them to say something specifically meaningful to you that you can fit in your mental framework, never mind that they barely know you. This last is a ridiculous expectation. It is mostly a matter of luck of someone saying something about their lives that hits the sweet spot for you.

I have done just a whole lot of this type of inquiry. I do much less of it these days. It simply isn't very effective. It is a broad scatter shot approach at best. It can also have weird social collateral damage.

I mean you can do whatever you want to do. You don't need my permission and my comments are in no way intended to reign in your behavior or tell you to stop this or something. I am just telling you this approach tends to go poorly in my experience and my thinking on why that is so.

But feel free to prove me wrong. No big.

> I am curious why people thought it was interesting.

I'm thinking it's because lots of people dream of doing a radical change in their lives (I've read about a study that said that something like 70-80% of people dream about it), but few actually pull the trigger. So, they want to hear how it went for someone who actually did.

Anytime one makes an effort to become a better functioning member of society, provided the ROI works out, s/he's making him/herself more of an asset.

>Socially it has been challenging because of the time commitment. I'm not on the same schedule as everyone else and don’t fit anyone's model of what people do with their lives.

I've noticed the same, though age gap is less pronounced in my case. Different pond, different people, different conduct.

I believe the need (or desire) to re-invent oneself several times during a career will become soon the norm rather than the exception. How to not make this a social liability is a challenge ahead of all of us.

Thanks for writing this.

> bad luck and an inability to manage politics/get promoted

Do you think navigating politics is easier in academia than in the private financial sector?

You are welcome.

> Do you think navigating politics is easier in academia than in the private financial sector?

I assume there will be some level of politics everywhere. I have friends who have told me sad stories about things they've seen in academia, so I know it can get ugly there too. None that compare to what I've seen in the financial world though. Not even close. I can't get into that stuff here though.

But more importantly, it's critical to my mental health that I leave and do something else. So that's what I'm doing.

i switched careers later in life , best decision ever. go ahead and don’t give a damn about others opinions, odd they’d stop talking to you sound jealous!