visualtheorist

Hi everyone. I am just turning 60 in a few weeks. I try to stay in good physical condition, which I believe is highly important if you want to be able to compete with younger applicants. I completed my doctorate at an R1 school in March in a social sciences field. I will be going to commencement next month, a week before my 60th birthday. Everyone on the planet who knows anything about colleges knows the name of my institution, and it is very highly ranked. I applied when I was 55, yet I was the first to defend my dissertation and graduate in my cohort. I had good grades coming in, but my previous masters degree was earned about 35 years earlier. In 2008 I earned a 94% on verbal on the GRE, so that was probably a gating factor in my admission. Upon admission, I was provided with a four-year fellowship. It was a pittance compared to my six-figure salary in earlier years in my career, but because of my age, I was getting nowhere applying to corporate jobs, so I applied to graduate school, was accepted, and now, in 2014, I have a PhD! What about my future? I applied to numerous professional and tenure-track positions in the past six months, and received a lot of rejection...but I finally landed a tenure-track assistant professor position at a really cool but small university a couple of weeks ago. I am stoked to the max! What I would say to anyone over 50 who is thinking of embarking on a doctorate is do everything with your eyes and heart wide open. Then, follow your dreams. Make sure that you are in good health so that those around you can imagine you living a long time. Be energetic and excited about your research and academic interests, after all, if you want to become a teacher, you can't be introverted, aloof, boring or self-absorbed. And you definitely can't be a know-it-all with a rigid outlook. I have done a lot of things in life, but I believe that my best years are still ahead of me. My marriage is intact. My wife and I are on the very same page. We endured a lot in the past 4 1/2 years to get to this point, but seeing those three alphabetical fragments after my name, and being called doctor and soon-to-be professor, makes every second of the journey worthwhile. Now I can go out and be a positive force for changing lives. It's not about the money anymore. If anyone reading this blog is wondering can it be done? Well, I am living proof that it can be done. I remember when I first discovered theGradCafe back before I was accepted to grad school, watching the results come in for admitted (and rejected) students. I finally posted up back then that I had been accepted somewhere. I cannot tell you how good it feels to now be able to post that I am done with my program, and that I have a new (tenure-track) career ahead of me. Whatever you do folks, keep the Faith. Be a realist, but never lose your dreams. Faith can move mountains. All the Best