I love taking classes and learn new things. So, I don't find your desire strange or very difficult. The real question is do you need the "proof" of knowledge? As I approach 60 years, my desire to finish yet another masters degree has wained. I now use more informal learning.

Hi Ang.
My wife Helen qualified as a teacher way back in 1970 but she always hankered after a degree. She was an extremely bright lady and because she had been mis-directed whilst in the sixth form she ended up doing 'Biology main' (A girl's subject !!!!!!!!!) at Cyn-Coed teacher training College, Ca-ardiff . Talk about sexism and stereotyping!

In her late forties/early fifties, she finally fulfilled her ambition and completed a Math's degree after three years study. This while teaching full time, with two growing (High School) children and no husband on scene cos' he was often away at sea. She only took three years because she was an extremely bright lady but she attended two summer schools in Milton Keynes. I think she did six units but I would stand corrected on that as I was not there much during those hectic years. However, she finally got her B.A., (Not a B.Sc., note.) and fulfilled her dream.
I end by telling you it gave her an immense sense of achievement and fulfilment for the rest of her life and we both felt it was the zenith of her life-achievement. It's a lot of work but it does give one a tremendous fillip to put those letters after one's name. Furthermore, she never used her degree professionally either, though she did a lot of maths tutoring for A level students after our children left home for college.

GO FOR IT GIRL!!! It's a lot of work but very rewarding.
Bev.

P.S.

Her success also motivated me to do an O.U., M.Sc., in 'Microscopic and Macroscopic factors affecting Oil cargo Clingage in Ship's cargo tanks This I completed at aged 55 when I finally concluded my seafaring career. That was useful in my last career as a harbour-master in South Wales.

There are now several universities that do "Distance Learning" for Degrees in a whole range of subjects. One can also learn by reading, by experimenting, and by just doing new things. I was once in a close relationship with someone who worked at the Open University in the then New City of Milton Keynes, and got to finding out a lot more than they made public about how they managed things and how they taught. My impression is that they remain the best at it. My local University, the University of the Highlands and Islands, is the newest proper University that provides such opportunities. My younger Daughter did a Fine Arts BA (Special), that was supposed to be a three year course but because they were still setting themselves up, it took six years because they did not yet have the staff available to teach each new year ! I understand they are now far better organised, It is definitely the harder way to do a degree.

When my then Employers sent me to work in their West German Subsidiary, I was sent on a Goerthe Institute course of Intensive Learning to acquire at least some basic German. It lasted a Fortnight and they paid my bill. Most of my fellow students on that course were young Japanese ladies, but they were accompanied by an eighty-year old Japanese man, whom they treated with great reverence and respect, and who did very well on the Course, passing with a better score than I had.

I am now 78, and after the Biotech Bubble burst, I moved to a small Hebridean island to be nearer my younger daughter, at her suggestion, and my work now is with a local Charity, where I have to pay them to let me work for them ! I am learning the local language, which is Scots Gaelic, that older people still speak in the local shop and when they meet.

I found moving from one country to another and needing to learn the local lingo helped keep me young. I first studied Zoology which included Oecology, for my B Sc, but later had to do one in Immunology, This is a subject that is intensively researched, so that I have twice now had to go back to a college to revise and update my knowledge of it, and I was granted a PhD in it whilst working in Hungary back in the late 1980s. I sometimes have to help students with their Theses. to get all the grammar and spelling right and make it clearer what they are trying to say, but I try to keep up with advances in the Biological, Chemical and Physical sciences, by reading the Journals etc.. With the late consequences of being bombed and trapped in the ruins of our house in London during the Blitz, and my lack of a proper balance sense due to either a series of childhood infections or the side effects of various pre-antibiotic prescriptions, I was never going to be any good at sports, and whilst I really love to go for walks, these days I have to concentrate on how to fall safely more than trying to stay upright, but, weather permitting, I still go for a stroll along a beach or over some dunes, or even through the rather rare in these parts, wood, with my stick to help me.

Over these last 2 decades, I have lost too many dear Friends and Relatives, including my Mother, who went a few days before her 90th Birthday. I have noticed that people reach a stage where they turn inward and lose interest in the world outside of themselves, and it is then that they start to die. There are things we can take these days to keep active and alive longer. A serious shock can also re-set one's Biological Clock. I had that happen to me, many years ago, as a result of an accident with a radioactive isotope I was pipetting using a mouth pipette (back then there was no " 'Elf 'n' Safety" rules in research labs!). I am biologically 25 years younger than my chronological age.