Some may fear the thought of returning to the academic world as a mature age student, but 76-year-old Nadine Bird embraced it.
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She is one of the 844 La Trobe University students to graduate this week.
“Being around younger students allows you to see the future,” Ms Bird said.
“I’ve just loved learning with them, if you accept young people they will accept you.”
Ms Bird was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy for her academic work titled Life in the Tertium Quid: Memory, Migration and Imagined Spaces and the Post-War British Australian Experience.
She chose the topic because of her history as a migrant, coming to Australia from England when she was 10 years old.
During her time as a mature age student she was surrounded by younger people, which she believes was highly beneficial to the learning process for herself and other students.
“You can definitely learn an awful lot from the young students,” Ms Bird said.
“And they learnt from me, it was a two-way street.”
