How to successfully feel old at 31

There are probably a bunch of different ways to make oneself feel like he or she is "too old." 30 year-olds are considered old in a number of sports (gymnastics and tennis are a couple of examples) and would probably look very much out of place in the average high school.

But if you are looking to feel old but NOT also feel creepy (high school) or over the hill (sports) you can simply enroll in a PhD program. I have personally always been either the youngest or one of the youngest in my grade, all the way up to my MBA. The tables have turned and I am somehow the papa bear in the class.

Being an "older" doctoral students certainly has its perks. If you spent your early years pursuing a Master's degree, for example, you may have the advantage of having covered a lot of your early doctoral coursework in that Master's program. Not only are you given respite from the long hours your classmates have to spend learning F-tests and plotting demand curves, but you also get a head start on learning Academia's favorite pastime ("Research!"). Or you could spend some more time sleeping, of course (clearly, I chose the former).

You also have a lot of perspective to bring into Phd school, having worked in the so-called "Real World." There is nothing more irksome (to me) than research that has no bearing on said Real World. I don't know exactly how my having worked before will prevent me from doing research cares about (which apparently happens all the time, according to one of my more cynical professors), but I am confident that I will at least be aware of its irrelevance before standing in front of a room full of people and speaking about it for 15 minutes.

The list goes on - you can dispense fatherly advice about life, you can avoid doing "grunt" work (e.g., putting together the e-vite for the departmental happy hour!) even though you are a lowly first-year student, and tell lots of interesting stories in class about the "Real World."

Bottom line, although it isn't the best thing in the world to know that you are considered the old guy in the program, it has its perks. Yes, I will be almost at my scheduled Mid-life crisis when I graduate but I'll probably develop the tools that I need to address this crisis during the program (did I mention that we can take as many credits as we want.... for FREE!!). By the time I graduate I plan to be a one man production house who speaks six languages and sows baskets underwater - and, of course, an expert PdD in International Business!