\u201cAre you crazy? Going to university in your 50s! What on earth are you thinking? But you\u2019re already a grand-father, why do you want to become a student?\u201d<\/p>\n
These were not the actual questions people asked me; they were normally much more polite and restrained when I told them that I\u2019d be going off to do an MSc in Sustainable Energy at Imperial College in London.\u00a0\u201cHow do you feel about becoming a student?\u201d was the typical question I was asked many times by family and friends in the run-up to the start of term.\u00a0How to start answering that? Excitement? A sense of adventure? A little trepidation? \u2013 after all things have probably changed considerably since the last time? Anyway I myself am certainly a very different person to the brash, self-conscious boy, only just turned 18, who previously went off to university almost forty years ago.<\/p>\n
I found myself transforming the question, sensing the unspoken innuendos: \u201cHow do you feel about embarking on a post-graduate taught MSc course at 56 years old?\u201d; \u201cHow do you think you\u2019ll fit in?\u201d; \u201cDo you think your brain will re-adapt to academic life and study after all these years?\u201d; \u201cDon\u2019t you think it will be awkward with most of the other students being younger than your own children?\u201d; and so the questions go on, swirling around inside my head.<\/p>\n
So yes: excitement, adventure, as well as some trepidation. However, becoming a mature student at only-just-turned-56 has some advantages: I may still be brash, but some of my self-consciousness has been replaced over the intervening years by self-awareness and more self-confidence. And yes, I\u2019ll be doing something I really want to do, engaging in the field of Sustainable Energy, possibly opening the path to future research, or other opportunities to make an impact in the transition to a future lower-carbon energy system.<\/p>\n
On top of that I\u2019ll be moving to London. Whooppee. Yes I\u2019ve lived in many places, in nine or ten countries spanning several continents, but there\u2019s something indefinably alluring about the prospect of spending some time in Britain\u2019s capital city, with its buzz and liveliness, its wealth of culture and history, its beauty and ugliness, its diversity and opportunity. (Turn again Dick Whittington, turn again\u2026)<\/p>\n
So here I am, just like hundreds of others coming from far and wide, a new post-graduate student at Imperial College, finding my way around in a new first term.<\/p>\n
Please feel to share this journey with me through this blog-site; I don\u2019t know where it will take me, but I\u2019m looking forward to an interesting voyage\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cAre you crazy? Going to university in your 50s! What on earth are you thinking? But you\u2019re already a grand-father, why do you want to become a student?\u201d These were not the actual questions people asked me; they were normally much more polite and restrained when I told them that I\u2019d be going off to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1159,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1159"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2562"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2564,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2562\/revisions\/2564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}