43 and halfway through first year here. The other day I was walking back into gross lab with my white coat on, and one of my lab partners looks up and does a quick double-take. She tells me "Oh, you looked so professorial there it took me a second to realize who you were." I said "Oh, you mean I look so old?"
I don't usually feel 20 years older than my classmates, but I have to remember that to most of them, I probably look more like a parent than a peer. There is one guy in my class older than me (only by one year), and he is in the locker room couple times a day rubbing BenGay all over himself, so I'm at least glad I'm not *that* old.
We like to say that age doesn't really matter, but I think honestly, it does, at least in some respects. I suspect at least SOV would heartily agree that all the rote memorization we must do the first couple years is a lot harder with our old/pre-Alzheimer's brains. It can be harder socially; I don't really feel like I have much of a peer group to hang out with. While I get along fine with my classmates, outside of class most of them are all into going out drinking every opportunity, and that's just not my bag any more. I'm single, and while vet school has a great reputation as a place to hook up, as far as dating goes for me, forget about it. Even with the male/female ratio being greatly in my favor, the 20ish year age difference is pretty insurmountable.
Oh, and don't forget about post-vet school challenges. Right now, we're all focused on getting in/through vet school, which is its own circle of hell. But as an example, I'll be almost 47 when I graduate. I'll be broke, probably at least $150K in debt, and trying to start at square one in a very challenging career while most of my competition for good jobs is 20 years younger. That's pretty daunting right there, and I doubt I'll ever have a nice comfortable retirement to look forward to. Fortunately, I've chosen not to reproduce so I will have no kids to support or put through college, and if I end up living in a van down by the river during my golden years, well, that's on me. But it can be pretty disheartening sometimes if I think about it.
I've heard and I believe that things can get easier for us if we can make it through the first couple years. In clinical rotations and in the real world, experience and maturity can really help you succeed and make clients and other clinicians more comfortable. So I don't want to discourage all the other "super non-trads" out there, but I just want y'all to be prepared. It is really really hard, and you better want this more than anything else. Despite the difficulties, I have no regrets about doing this because being a vet is the most important thing to me. Just... be sure you're really up for this and know how hard your life is going to be.
