<p align="left">When I retired, I imagined my future would involve a few walks, the occasional afternoon nap, and perhaps a heroic attempt to tame the weeds in the garden. What I did not imagine was becoming an undergraduate in my seventies.</p>
<p align="left">Retirement offers numerous opportunities. One of them is watching daytime television. In theory, this may sound relaxing. In practice, it involves sitting on the sofa watching reruns of programmes you were desperate to avoid the first time around, interspersed with a steady stream of adverts for funeral plans, stairlifts and mobility scooters. While undoubtedly useful products, they did little to convince me that I was embarking on life&#8217;s next great adventure.</p>
<p align="left">After a decidedly short spell of this, I concluded that my brain deserved better. Rather than settling into a comfortable routine of TV and biscuit consumption, I decided to enrol with the Open University.</p>
<p align="left">Many people turn over a new leaf by joining a gym, taking up yoga, or promising to eat more vegetables. I, on the other hand, decided to spend my evenings wrestling with academic texts and wondering why a reference has to be in exactly the right format to avoid academic disgrace.</p>
<p align="left">My earlier experience of education was somewhat different from today&#8217;s. For a start, at school I was punished for being left-handed. Look at photographs of classrooms in the 1950s, and you&#8217;ll notice that desks have inkwells only on the right-hand side (Google it if you don’t know what an inkwell is), suggesting that left-handed children were viewed as either a design flaw or a temporary inconvenience. Apparently, the Latin word for &#8220;left&#8221; is <i>sinister</i>, and this was considered reason enough to attempt to reform me before I grew up to become a master criminal. Despite the school&#8217;s best efforts, I stubbornly remained left-handed (also, not a master criminal!). Returning to education in my seventies, I was pleased to discover that modern universities no longer monitor the hand with which assignments are written—although they remain surprisingly interested in where the commas go in references.</p>
<p align="left">On my first day with the OU, I approached the computer with some trepidation. I had been assured that everything I needed was available online. This was encouraging, although I spent the first twenty minutes trying to remember the password I had created ten minutes earlier.</p>
<p align="left">Soon I found myself learning a whole new language. There were forums, webinars, online libraries, PDFs and something called a VLE. At first, I assumed VLE was a new political party. It turned out to be the Virtual Learning Environment, which sounded much less exciting but considerably more useful.</p>
<p align="left">My fellow students came from every age group. Some were young enough to be my grandchildren. As a seventy-something undergraduate, I initially worried that I might feel out of place. In fact, I quickly discovered that confusion about assignment deadlines is remarkably democratic. It affects everyone equally. Being an undergraduate in your seventies has its advantages. For one thing, when tutors refer to &#8220;mature students&#8221;, I can be reasonably confident they&#8217;re talking about me. I have also discovered the pleasure of requesting a student discount. The saving is usually modest, but the reaction it provokes can be priceless.</p>
<p align="left">Now, as I find myself nearer to eighty than seventy, I may not be the youngest leaf on the tree, but I&#8217;ve discovered that growth doesn&#8217;t stop just because a few autumns have passed. Sometimes turning over a new leaf is simply deciding that there are still new things worth learning. Ironically, studying now leaves me with so little spare time that I rarely watch daytime television. I consider this a sacrifice worth making, although I suspect the funeral-plan advertisers miss me terribly.</p>

Share
Read more