From 18 to 82: The Extension School Celebrates Age Diversity

Vera Bissell, AA '02, and Amit Chatterjee, ALB '02

A hallmark of the Extension School program is the remarkable age diversity of its students. There is no other place at the University where Monday through Thursday, 32 weeks out of the year, one can find 20-somethings learning side by side with 80-somethings. This diversity adds significant value to the learning environment. Class lectures come alive with student voices, offering many different perspectives and life experiences.

This Commencement the diversity was particularly noteworthy: the Extension School celebrated the youngest graduate in its 90-year undergraduate degree-granting history as Amit Chatterjee, 18 years old, earned his Bachelor of Liberal Arts (ALB), while Vera Bissell at 82, the oldest degree recipient of the 2001-02 graduating class, earned her Associate in Arts (AA) degree.

The life circumstances that brought Chatterjee and Bissell to the Extension School are as diverse as their ages. Their stories highlight the varied roads that nontraditional students travel to earn their undergraduate degrees and are affirmations of the Extension School's "open-gate" policy that encourages and supports such individual journeys to liberal arts learning.

Amit Chatterjee began his Extension School undergraduate education at the age of 12. He is the son of academics and was achieving well above his fellow fourth graders in elementary school. Even after a double promotion to the sixth grade, the daily lessons were coming too easily for a boy who spent hours in the library at Brown University studying mythology while his father completed courses toward a PhD. Home schooling became the most viable option. After a few years of lessons from his father in physics, history, and literature, 12-year-old Chatterjee enrolled in his first Extension School courses. The plan was to complement the home schooling offered by his father with Extension School work, but Chatterjee loved studying at Harvard and his father finally felt secure that his son was being academically challenged. Soon Chatterjee was pursuing his studies at the Extension School on nearly a full-time basis. Six years later, he is now an ALB alumnus, and when he states that "I grew up on this campus," it has a truthful ring distinct from even the 21-year-old Harvard College graduates.

For Chatterjee, it does not seem at all odd to be earning his degree at 18 with an older adult student population, nor does he miss the traditional high school experience. "I don't miss attending high school because I never started high school. You can't miss what you never had. My friends tell me that I am lucky to have skipped it. Most important, I never felt out of place at the Extension School. There were other younger students around and I came to enjoy not being at the top of the class anymore. In fact, I came to value most the learning I received from my fellow classmates. I made many friends here; granted, you need to put more effort into the social scene at the Extension School then in high school, but the effort is well worth it."

Chatterjee is preparing for a career in government. He is an intern at the National Voting Rights Institute, and he has no plans to end his Extension School learning experience. He has already completed graduate-level courses and plans to apply to the Extension School's Master of Liberal Arts (ALM) degree program with a concentration in history. It is altogether possible that he will also be the Extension School's youngest ALM graduate.

While Chatterjee was learning to walk and preparing for preschool, Vera Bissell at 66 was celebrating her 47th year of marriage. She had raised five children and had dedicated her post-child raising life to public service in New York City through the Yorkville Civic Council (YCC), where she was responsible for the sponsorship of numerous social service funding projects. Among these was the highly publicized tree-planting project, responsible for bringing 250 trees to the concrete streets of Manhattan's Yorkville district.

Vera and her husband, George, relocated to Boston for his architectural career. It was the 1970s and, as Vera stated, "the whole women's movement was going on and I thought maybe I shouldn't be volunteering, I should have a job--a paid job." Consequently, she entered a program at Northeastern University that was specifically designed to help civic-minded women make the transition from volunteer work to business employment.

After a year of intensive training in management functions and operations at Northeastern, Bissell got a position at Raytheon. It was during this time that she discovered the Extension School and took a few courses to help with her professional position. As the only professional woman in her department at Raytheon, Bissell experienced the initial hostility that comes with being a pioneer. The courses at the Extension School helped her compete and stay sharp for her demanding career as the only female associate systems analyst in the Logistics Program Management Office of the Patriot Program.

After leaving Raytheon in 1987, Bissell began taking Extension School courses in earnest and was happy to learn that her courses from the '70s could still be applied toward a degree. Through the late '80s and '90s, she completed a couple of courses per year with a few years off in between. This June, 27 years after that first Extension School course, Bissell earned her AA degree.

Why did she do it? "I am very interested in everything I am learning--drama, literature--all those things that I have talked about with people, but never felt very sure of. I get the pleasure of knowing." In addition, "I enjoy showing those around me that education is possible at any age. If they see me working at it, maybe they won't give up and they will come to believe that formal learning is always an option."

While the student age diversity at Commencement was remarkable, it is not uncommon at the Extension School to have an age span of 60 years in a majority of classrooms. So whether one is a talented secondary school student looking to be challenged or a highly motivated senior citizen wanting to experience the pleasure of knowing, learning and earning a degree at the Extension School is not only possible at any age but also highly probable.

by Suzanne Spreadbury, Director, Undergraduate Degree Programs