Going Back to School at 60

Thu, 27 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A month from now, at 60 years old, I start my first class toward a master’s degree in history.

I researched for a while to find the school that was the right fit. Once I found one that worked, academically and financially, I decided that instead of jumping right in I’d give myself a month or two to get ready.

The first class is one of two core courses you have to take to get started, a research methods seminar. The sessions run eight weeks and there are six of them a year. Twelve courses means I’ll be done sometime around 2028 or 2029. That’s two years if nothing goes wrong, three if it does, and something will.

Clicking the register button took a minute. I was at my desk in my apartment, which is small, and I live in it by myself. Am I really doing this? Can I afford it? But I knew that like anything else, if I applied myself and problem solved, those questions were just me stalling.

I clicked the button.

I have a practical reason for doing this. I plan to retire at 63 from a long government job. My pension, my savings, and money from gigs that aren’t always on a set schedule will get me close, but not close enough to stop working altogether. Teaching history part-time online might give me a way to bring in some money doing something I actually care about. For that, I need a master’s degree.

That’s the practical explanation. It’s true, and it isn’t why I clicked the button.

When I graduated high school, which feels like a whole other lifetime, I did what most 18-year-olds who grew up in a suburb felt like they were supposed to do. I registered for college.

You have to understand that it was 1984, and the reputation of my generation is well documented and not wrong. I started smoking cigarettes when I was 15. Drinking and smoking weed came next. By 18 I was a pro at hanging with my friends, listening to loud music (lots of Rush, Led Zeppelin, and a host of other rock tunes), and getting high.

Other than making sure I went to school every day and had food in the house, I was pretty much left to my own devices. My mom raised my brother and me on her own for years while working, so the two of us learned how to occupy ourselves and take care of ourselves how we saw fit. So when college started, I was not in the mind to spend four more years trapped in school. But I sucked it up and went.

It was a disaster.

I hated it. I hated the structure, I hated the costs, I hated feeling trapped in something I didn’t want to be doing when I figured that as an “adult” I had better options. Those options unfortunately were partying more. I was still living at home, contributing nothing, sleeping late into the day and going out at night. My mom’s boyfriend, who we lived with and who eventually became my step-dad, told me that laying around all day was not going to work. I had to do something. A job, school, something. He wasn’t mean about it, but it was very clear that I did indeed have to do something.

So instead I joined the Army.

That was a rude wakeup call. Being told what to do, how to do it, and when to do it, with no recourse other than doing it. It was the best thing I could have done. I still didn’t take it as seriously as I should have, and when my hitch was up and I got out, I went back to my partying ways for a while.

That cost me. I squandered the education benefits I earned on active duty and basically lived life. Worked, married, had kids, you get the picture. But in my mid-40s I decided I wanted to earn a bachelor of arts in history. I was a well-established tech guy and I didn’t want to go to school for something I already did for a living. If I was going back properly, it should be something I was interested in. History was the one thing during my adult years I always found interesting, entertaining, and soothing. The research, the stories, the quest for knowledge, all of it lifted me out of the everyday routine.

So I registered, went to classes, and was very, very adamant about doing well. I took my studies seriously. About three quarters of the way through we moved, the in-seat classes were no longer an option, and I switched to online to finish.

They were harder. I no longer had instant access to the instructor, or the connection and ideas of the other students in the room. You get some of that online, but it’s nowhere near the same as having a question and having it fleshed out on the spot. I had to up my discipline game to keep from doing the thing half-assed.

I graduated four and a half years later with my BA in history. Cum laude, no less.

That was huge for me. I didn’t go back for work or for career advancement. I went back because I wanted to learn, and because I wanted to prove to myself that my quest for knowledge and my analytical mind were up to it. That I wasn’t some man pretending to have brains. I did it, and at middle age no less.

I’m 60 now. I earned that degree more than ten years ago. I’m close to retirement. I ended up divorced, my kids are grown and out adulting, and I live on my own. I’d thought about a master’s over the years but figured my school days were behind me and wondered what I’d get out of it. I’d already proved I had the skill and the fortitude to tackle something my 19-year-old self thought was stupid. I went looking for knowledge and I found it, in a field I have a real passion for.

Then something happened in the spring that rearranged my sense of how much time I have left. I’m not going to write about it here.

So maybe another degree finally quiets that doubt. Maybe it just hands the doubt a better piece of paper to argue with. It’s occurred to me that it might not settle anything. What I know it settles is a requirement I need for what comes next.

I had chances at this earlier in life, but I think waiting to do it as an older man was the better move. I take it more seriously than that 19-year-old ever would have, and I’ll take it more seriously now.

I look back at what I thought was a long road to that bachelor’s degree, how it felt like a tunnel with no end. That was more than ten years ago. It was a blip. I sort of feel the same way now. I figure when I’m 70 I’ll look back and this will be a blip too.

History · Vintage66's Weblog

Going Back to School at 60