<p>I'm 23, I've just dropped out of my business degree and I'm looking to save up and then go back to university at 25 to study something which I'm passionate about and hopefully have a rewarding career.</p>
<p>I would like to know how employers will look at this and can I have a good, rewarding and fulfilling career once I've obtained my degree at 28?</p>
<p>I'm looking to read Civil Engineering and then possibly study a masters with the view of going into highway or strucutural engineering.</p>
<p>My other problem is I was quite comfortable dating women while I was at uni. However, the situation is I'm 23, heading back to uni at 25 and graduating at 28, possibly starting my career at 29-30. I feel the average 23-24 women have degree's and they may not think I'm relationship material or equal to them.</p>
<p>Advice, comments and suggestions appreciated,</p>
<p>I’m 26 and have had a surprising amount of interest from girls under 20, without even trying to generate any. I don’t think it will be a problem, if you really want to date girls that young.</p>
<p>(Edit: Didn’t mean that to sound judgmental. I personally find a lot of college girls are developmentally compatible with me. I just phrase things dumb sometimes. I just meant to say, if you are fine with it, I’m sure you’ll find plenty of girls who don’t even think about it.)</p>
<p>I switched majors from art to CS at 30. No one cares. About the only response I’ve ever gotten about being relatively-old and making a serious second attempt at an education is “but isn’t CS way harder than art?”. </p>
<p>As for girls, I was under the assumption most chicks prefer old dudes. That certainly applied in my case.</p>
<p><!~31, finishing second BS in Eng, gets all sorts of interest from both the ladies and employers, Married so the ladies get no interest back, also enjoys long walks on the beach and candle lit dinners.</p>
<p>I hired a couple of people who, for various reasons, started engineering school around the timeframe you’re talking about. By that time in their lives they knew better what they wanted and were willing to work hard at it, both in school and later in their jobs. They were good engineers and did well.</p>
<p>I believe so. My engineering technology instructor has informed me that he has had a wonderful career as an engineer (he’s also a PE), and he didn’t go back to school to get his BS and Master’s until he was like…in his 30’s I think he said. </p>
<p>The thing is, you gain a valuable set of mathematical, technical, and writing skills while studying engineering. I don’t see why you’d have a problem finding a job at 28…</p>
<p>Shouldn’t matter how old you are. Do what you feel gives you best opportunity to succeed. Your maturity should give you the extra focus. I’m 25 with 3 kids, my focus is on school, not out partying like 18-20 freshman sophomore. Some of these younger adults I’ve attended class with… GPAs are horrendous. Employers are surely looking at school performance in school or experience not age I would think.</p>
<p>I graduated with a degree in electrical engineering at 30, after having failed out of school at 22. I was then accepted to jobs and PhD programs. You should be fine.</p>
<p>I met my husband in engineering grad school - we had two classes together. He was 30 and I was only 22! He looked so young that I made him show me his driver’s license to prove his age.</p>
<p>We’ve been married 26 1/2 years. I am SO glad he waited so long to finish his education, or I would have been too young to date him!</p>
<p>You say you failed out at 22 and was later accepted to phd programs.</p>
<p>I failed two full semesters at a community college at the age of 17. I simply didn’t attend class. I got two Ws because the professors withdrew me on their own, and the rest Fs.</p>
<p>I took one semester off after that, switch to a different CC, and now have a 4.0 GPA and am about to start my third semester. I’m transferring to Uni next Fall, with presumably a 4.0.</p>
<p>Because I was such an idiot back then, and ended up failing, I’ve always been worried that, even with my newfound dedication to school and a better GPA, grad schools will see my older CC GPA and not accept me. Will pay more attention to the fact that I’m doing so great now or frown too much on my transcripts from when I was 17? It seems like they don’t mind that you failed at 22 since you did so great afterward.</p>
<p>I know a lot of PhD programs don’t care about the first two years of undergrad. Berkeley calculates it based only on Junior and Senior years. Or at least that’s what the info on their college of materials science site says.</p>
<p>@JonJon13926 - as PoppinBottlesMGT notes above, different schools handle things in different ways. In my particular case, I was readmitted under what is called “Academic Rehbailitation”, and under that program my school calculated my GPA only counting those courses after my readmission. Some schools accepted that GPA as gospel, other calculated my GPA using their own methods, including my old bad grades - in one case that ended my chances at admission, in another case I was able to talk to them and convince them to accept my “official” GPA instead of their calculated alternative.</p>
<p>So yes, some schools will hold your earlier CC performance against you. Others won’t.</p>
<p>I met the man who is now my husband when he was pursuing his mechanical engineering degree at the age of 30. I was 27 and finishing grad school at the same university. He got a good, entry-level engineering job shortly after he graduated.</p>
<p>We celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary day after tomorrow.</p>