Queens Belfast - older students

I am due to start my PhD at Queens in October. I am quite anxious about the fact that I am waaaay older than the average mature student and how that will affect my prospects of making friends and having a reasonable social life. I did make friends with people of vaying ages during my undergrad and Masters despite being a bit of a fossil but I feel that living away from home this time etc will make it a different experience. I intend to join societies etc and join in whatever I can but am not sure how well I will fit in given my age. Does anyone on here have experience of Queen's as an older student ?

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 1

Anonymous #1

Original post by Pauline58

I am may be same age as you so just do it. As I am trying to find a lot of info as I want to start this year

Reply 2

Dalton105

Mature student here, around the average age while learning how to drive and studied in my local college for around seven years. From my experience as a mature student in college, the only person that you can rely on is yourself. But that is not a bad thing. You will get acquaintances throughout your course and at best, they will follow you through the rest of your newfound career or at worst, be one of those that forgot about you after graduation. I would like to believe that being in university will have great opportunities of interacting a diverse amount of people than what you can get within your previous education and college years. I kept hearing multiple staff in my college saying that they been teaching many in their 40s and 50s, but I have rarely encountered one in person aside from one in my first course that did not last long. The oldest that I have as a peer is at their late 20s and after that brief time, I was three to four years ahead of my peers, which limits and restricts on how I interact with them and ends off with little to no friends after it was over. If you have experiences making lots of friends despite your age and experiences, that is amazing! I am sure that you have a richer experience and with you past experiences and age, you have no problem fitting in.