Feeling like Grad School is the end of my youth/young adulthood

I’m a 22 year old MA student doing it straight from undergrad and I feel like doing this is the end of my youth. In my class, I enjoyed the discussion but I have some folks much older than me like starting their PHD and already working for years now or being married/have kids and since they are my peers, I feel like I’m in the same life stage as someone in their late twenties/early thirties onward and I feel so old compared to undergrads(sophomore-seniors or 18-22 year olds) and I can’t relate/am not in the same life stage and it makes me feel like my youth is over. Like I want to make friends and all which will be harder due to Covid and wouldn’t mind my own age range. How can I deal with this as it’s bothersome

There are 50 year old’s whose youth never ended, and 24 year old’s with a mortgage who spend the weekends cleaning gutters and mowing the lawn.

It isn’t about your age, it’s about the choices you make and what you want out of life.

Friendships come from shared experiences and similar interests- not from being in the same age bracket.

Take a socially distanced pottery class, join a virtual haiku writing seminar, find a museum in your area which is giving Covid-friendly art appreciation classes. You can be friends with 19 year olds and you can be friends with 50 year olds- but you need to DO something, nobody is coming to your apartment and dragging you out.

I think you should spend more time searching out things that you might like to do and quit focusing so much on how old people are. If you participate in activities you enjoy it will be easier to find other people that you have something in common with. What kind of things do you like to do?

You have many threads addressing a common theme: you are seemingly always worried that you are too old compared to undergrads, and that you feel lost, out of place, or similar. I strongly urge you to seek counseling. You said this in one of your threads: “I just have a fear my youth is over/ending.”

Yes, you are an adult, and if you are unable to cope with that it’s time to get some help with your issues. Your insecurities about being an adult are beyond the scope of what strangers on CC can help you with.

Perhaps meeting with a career counselor and taking steps to chart your future might be a good idea. Perhaps insecurity about your future is also what’s troubling you. At any rate, we are not the right people to advise you.

Closing thread.