Ask HN: Is 34 too old to start grad school?

Jim Kent famously wrote GigAssembler, the breakthrough program that allowed the publicly funded Human Genome Project to successfully assemble the full human genome just 1 day ahead of their corporate competitor Celera, in 2000 while pursuing his PhD in Biology at USC Santa Cruz. He was 40 years old at the time. Without his incredible programming effort, it is very likely that Celera would have attempted to make the human genome data proprietary, and we would be looking at a dramatically different landscape in genetics and medicine today.

I am putting off grad school indefinitely, and this story always inspires me that I should go back one day when I'm ready.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Kent [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/science/reading-the-book-o...

2 questions:

1) Why wouldn't you go to grad school now?

2) In 30 years, would you regret taking a break in your career for a few years, or would you regret not going?

IMHO, it all depends on your goals really. It doesn't matter if you are unemployed, working at a restaurant, an engineer, or a millionaire CEO, the sun still rises each day and it is up to you to build the experiences, relationships, and, ultimately, memories that will make you the happiest you can be.

I have to warn you ... be very very careful about your expectations when it comes to getting a PhD. It defies logic when one considers the simultaneous push to graduate more PhD students when there are very very few faculty jobs available. Are you okay if you get a PhD but then never get a chance to use it in your work? Think hard about this ...

Doing it when you are older doesn't stack the deck against you in my opinion. I've known a few older PhD students in CS and I think they have some advantages over the under-30 bunch. Specifically, I've heard of some under 30 PhDs sometimes being said to "look" non-professorial. I guess some people expect professors and researchers to look a certain way (I think those people are idiots btw).

The only criterion is if you want this. Age does not matter. You will be in classes/labs with much younger people. If you don't care about that (or if you like that) then go for it.

What field are you considering?

No, it's never too late. If you are motivated and hungry for knowledge, that is. I started my undergrad comp-sci degree at 26 and it changed my life completely. If you don't do it, assuming you wanted it forever, you will be regretting it forever.

Not too late. My only advice would be to have a very clear (and realistic) vision of what you want to do with it while, at the same time, being open to opportunities that you're not presently aware of.

If you want to do something where such a degree is an entrance criterion, then sure.

If you want to hang out at the uni and the topic interests you, then why not?

Otherwise, I'd suggest self-study.

No, age doesn't matter. We have a few guys in their late 40's doing their PHD's and teaching some engineering classes at our Uni.

Geez, I hope not: If my current plans work out, I'll be 50 when I start.

No.