As somebody graduated at the top of my class with a BS in Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering in 2001 (after taking 11 years to complete it, so let’s see that means I started at age 40) and completed my MS in Systems Engineering in 2010 at age 60 I could not agree more! In order persist though it was necessary that I go to school because I liked going to school. I was actually kind of surprised when I realized that I was about a year out from my BS. It while working on my MS I noticed the following age related effect: As I got closer and closer to 60 it became harder and harder to pound new information and concepts into my head!

As for the math piece, I was a middling math student in high school but when I had my own reasons I found I could apply myself.

The age difference made for some funny moments. There was a woman about my age who was in some of my classes — she was majoring in Chemical Engineering so, super smart — anyway we were talking and about one of her classes she said, “oh my God I could have given birth to most of the students, and the professor too!”