MARINE MUSTANG O-3, 1999-2015 — Going to grad school at 38 and the strangeness of being the old one

Enlisted out of high school. Commissioned through the Enlisted Commissioning Program. Retired as a captain after sixteen years. I had a high school diploma and a bachelor's I had finished in online classes between deployments. I applied to a master's program in public policy at a state school. I got in. I was 38 in a cohort where the median age was 26. The first semester I felt every minute of the age gap. My classmates were sharper than I had expected and faster at the academic-prose game. I was better at the actual problem-solving game once we got to capstones, but for the first semester it did not feel that way. What got me through was Student Veterans of America. The campus had a chapter of about thirty student veterans. The chapter president was a 41-year-old former Marine intel officer. Two members were Army Reservists working on doctorates. The age range in the chapter was 23 to 52. Within SVA I was a younger member, not an older one. I went to chapter meetings every Wednesday for two years and that single hour kept me oriented for the rest of the week. I graduated. I work for a state agency now. I am older than my boss. I have stopped finding this remarkable.