Too Old to Study said who? I joined UNICEF with a strong business education, and my personal ambition was to get some exposure to the social world of UNICEF’s work at the academic level.
Some people that I co-joined in carrying this idea through made me feel like I was an old man embarking on an impossible task. Then a Sri Lankan friend asked that I contact another Sri Lankan of high position in another UN agency; he thought that I had already missed the boat but suggested that I contact another Sri Lankan who was a leading professor with one of the Universities in NYC. The Sri Lankan professor said since I did not have a US college degree and that I will first have to do four years in college. How lucky I went straight to NYU admissions process instead that recognized foreign credentials of university degrees and professional degrees as well. The Sri Lankan professor only considered a university degree as an US educational degree. Sometimes, you can be sadly misadvised and that needs caution.
I remember feeling some rapport in the 1980s with an unknown American professor at New York University (NYU). As a 40-year old pursuing an MPA, there was no reason for not feeling heard about the anxiety of studying with younger students. The professor gave me great encouragement. A year or so later I had a friend (ekul) who wanted to pursue a diploma in financial management at NYU. Just the mere asking of this professor and he made a waiver of a college degree as prerequisite considering work experience and other foreign qualifications. Not only did ekul go on to complete the diploma program, but also later on completed an MBA at an adjacent university.
Each time I spoke with this professor about higher studies at a higher age, I almost magically felt better although at UNICEF, some of my peers thought I was too old to study. One peer directly said that I was just too old to study. That peer even cautioned that I must make space for younger people in the department to study. Another peer said that at age 40, I was still trying to find a future in UNICEF. Nevertheless, with plenty of other people to find encouragement and with the determination of running for a marathon, I completed the 5-year part-time MPA program in two years and three months (while also running the NYC and other marathons each year and making at least one long trip a year for budget reviews).
When I look back, how hopelessly the negative sentiments of some people that can affect our lives sometimes discourage us. However, I have some advice for you. Imagine the number of people who know that you are engaged in say an academic activity (or any activity for that matter than will improve your life) and cast that number as the denominator of a fraction. Then, as a numerator label the number of people who severely discouraged you. That ratio of the total number of people who said bad things about you (or hurt you) to the total number of people you were in contact (also includes the number of people you contacted and said nothing), and you may be surprised that “that meanness” comes close to zero. The argument makes that humans are compassionate and emphatic despite the occasional meanness.
Of course, I have many other stories to tell of other people in my life who have been good and who have been very mean, however the MPA study stood out as a defining moment in my life at that time. For more than we are conscious of, our daily encounters with parents, spouses, children, friends, office colleagues and total strangers – these contacts change and mould our behavior and our lives. Just imagine how out of it you can be when thrown into a bunch of people you do not know, and then how different you are when you are with a bunch of people you know very well.
It is my pleasure to share this experience with you so that it serves as an inspiration for any of you to be an older student.
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