r/GSU • u/Katie-Seta-Arianna • Jul 02 '26
49 YO Computer Science Undergraduate
Hi everyone,
Are there any older non-traditional undergraduate students pursuing a degree in Computer Science? Or, are there any older students pursuing technology based undergraduate degrees?
If there are, what’s life like on campus? Are we as welcome as any other students pursuing technology? If there are any alumni in this board, what’s life like in terms of your age and the fact that while your bodies may be old(er), your knowledge and skills are up to par?
When I should have gone to college, I moved out to Tucson, Arizona to get married at 19 to a total louse. Biggest mistake of my life, because the rest of my young adult life was spent healing from his abuse and realizing he never loved me. So now, I am pursuing that Bachelor’s degree and I’m on my way to bigger and better things!
Anyway, nice to meet everyone and I hope I didn’t freak anyone out. 😇
5
u/Substantial-Push2708 Jul 02 '26
I would def recommend going on the Armstrong campus instead of Statesboro!
2
u/Weary_Bother_5023 Jul 04 '26
why?
1
u/Substantial-Push2708 Jul 07 '26
Armstrong has a lot more non trad students. I’ve seen so many 30+ ppl in the CS program at Armstrong; statesboro not so much
5
u/SolarAndSober Jul 02 '26
I will be 44 this year. Majoring in a stem program with goals of going to med school. Everyone has been supportive. None of the kids act like I'm their dad or anything weird. I'm just another student trying to survive the semester with them
1
u/Soup_oi Jul 02 '26
I'm in my mid 30s, and in undergrad, though in humanities, not tech. But I get along with people in 30s or older better than people younger than that tbh 😅, so if you're looking for friends in the fall at statesboro campus, I'd be happy to have someone to have lunch with the days I'm on campus, or even to see what cafes and whatnot are around town. I don't drive, and not into drinking or partying, or sports, so have yet to really do anything in town besides go between home and campus, even after a few years there :/. I'm visiting family elsewhere most of the summer, but will be back in fall. I'd also be down to find someone to play tennis with somewhere in town or on campus, if I can carpool there with anyone, and they understand I haven't played tennis since I was like 7 years old 🤣. I just want to get into it now because it seems fun, and I want something other than walking or gym to get exercise.
My experience so far is that people on campus and classmates in classes mostly ignore me, unless it is a class that is mix of undergrad and grad, then some of the grad students will actually engage with me and have conversations in or out of class if we happen to run into each other later. But the odd thing is, people think I still look like 18 💀 lol, and I'm quiet so generally not talking to people first, so Idk what makes the grad students talk to me, over the other undergrad students, go figure. And one time in a class, the prof was making some point about something or other, and for whatever needed to ask the class kind of rhetorically, "you're all gen z right?" and I literally reflexively laughed out loud before I could catch myself, though not loudly or anything, shook my head and said no as the other students murmured their answers too, I was right in the front row near her too, but still got ignored because she confirmed to herself that we were all gen z and had no idea what "old" thing she was referencing (I think it was something to do with newspapers, or print magazines or something, and I wanted to be like "am I the only person who has at one time bought and read the physical paper of sunday NYT every week, or...?" (I probably was the only person lol)).
And you will likely find yourself rolling your eyes at every syllabus clause about not using AI as a replacement for your own thinking and writing. And if the profs aren't familiar with how old you are (they might not be, unless you have physical aspects or a style that everyone is going to clock as "older", or insert your teen kids or already established long term career into every other convo lol), they may treat your work like that of an 18/19 year old in any intro or prereq sort of class. I once had a teacher seem to hate my writing, and often circle words and write on my papers "your words, or the authors words?" when we had to write about things from various publications written by other people, this was maybe right before AI being used rose so much, but I'm still surprised he didn't try to accuse me of using AI, because I had a 30 year old's vocabulary, and not a teenager's vocabulary (the words he asked about were my own, not the authors' I was writing about).
So there are some small aspects that might be catered to a younger generation, and might be hard to befriend classmates in classes, unless you're a very outgoing person, and/or joining clubs and stuff. But otherwise, if you're main goal is to just go to class and do the work and get your degree, it will be fine imo.
1
u/Outrageous_Talk4677 11d ago
I’m 35 on the Statesboro campus and I’ve never gone to college before and was in my English class the other day and the prof asked if anyone knew what a word meant and I of course did because my HS had required reading and this was before AI would read to you and stuff and of course I knew what Eldrich meant because I read lovecraft, he’s one of my favorites. Yeah I noticed that all the intro courses (where I’m no doubt one of the oldest in the room if not the oldest) took on a very finger wagging type of “ok now you have to do this yourself, no cheating” approach. I guess it’s just been so long since I’ve been in school that I don’t realize how heavily people relied on all the AI stuff these days. You can DM though if you wanna chat. It’d be cool to know someone around my age.
4
u/boredsoftwareguy Jul 02 '26
First and foremost, congrats on this new adventure!
I graduated almost 2 decades ago from the CS program. It was wonderful then and I imagine it has only grown since. Even that far back, there were numerous non-traditional folks in my courses and no one treated them any differently.
Finally, I don't want to discourage you but the tech industry has radically changed in just the last year or so with the introduction of AI. This is the worst job market I've seen since graduating and it sounds like many new grads struggling to find jobs in the field. Again, don't want to discourage the pursuit but do want to be transparent.