Historically and academically speaking you are abnormally young to be receiving an advanced degree. Most of my superiors and colleagues would call you "wet behind the ears" mostly because after completing your area of specialization most academic bodies require that you get some grounding in the philosophies and a broad and comprehensive understanding of the "world" in general for example, through history or another liberal study such as literature. This requires years of in-depth reading...
(my favorite work related task). Depending on your field most academic bodies require a specific language other than English to commensurate your degree...for example Chemistry and the hard sciences used to require basic fluency in German because most of the scientific historical texts such as Einstein's theories were written in German; and unless a student is an extreme case, complete fluency usually requires six months to a year of some form of
TOTAL immersion in the language in order to achieve total "consciousness" in that language i.e., the complete absence of English. Before the diploma mills and purchased diplomas for the undergraduate degree, an advanced degree pursuer could spend a decade completing their advanced degree. So, the typical age of advanced degree holders used to be and still is around 35 years old, for real academic advanced degree holders. (Syracuse University's MBA program has an average age of 41 years old). I use the word "real" to differentiate between those students who entered college looking specifically to attain an advanced degree and specialize in an academic field as opposed to those who merely want to graduate, get a diploma and say go to work; or, for example, those who just want a diploma to hang on the wall as a sign of achievement or the other case is the student who merely wants the "name" of the university to impress themselves or their friends etc.
In Tsarist Russia, students didn't achieve any advanced degree (there were none available) rather students were admitted to a baccalaureate curriculum and studied under a professor for 12 years. This made the earliest possible completion of a Bachelor's degree at the age of 30 years old if the student entered
directly into the school at 18 years old, after completing the "high school" curriculum, and then moved seamlessly through the program without problems. After completing the Baccalaureate the student was regarded as a Ph.D.
I left academia when I was roughly 25 to try my hand at the working world...and then returned at around 34 years old to complete my Master's degree in Engineering and Statistics. I will be entering into a doctoral program in Europe sometime within the next five years and I intend on spending a good decade dedicating myself to one field of study. I'm not old, I don't look old and I certainly don't feel old in any capacity and my superiors constantly refer to me as a "young man." I know that you are referring to this new algorithmic mode of thinking about age and "old" refers to someone who is not a millionaire by the age of 35; not the "old" that most other people think of as being a senior citizen who is limited or incapacitated. Unfortunately, the college degree (mostly the Bachelor's) has become all about the money in this era and I know that the "break-neck " pace of vanity and competition that is consuming American society is demanding a delusion of younger, smarter, faster etc...But this is wrong. Ten years whizzes by like nothing and before you know it you'll look up and you yourself will be 45 years old---and most certainly telling yourself, over and over again, that "you are not old."
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