PhD at the age of ninety.. Why does the time for learning never end?

"I am still learning".

(Michelangelo, Italian Renaissance artist at age 87)

Manfred Steiner, the Italian doctor who immigrated to the United States during World War II, aroused admiration and pride in the scientific community, after he fulfilled his old dream of being a physicist at the age of 89, after obtaining a doctorate in physics. from Brown University in September 2021 (1).

Steiner worked as a doctor, as his family advised him, for 30 years and then decided it was time to pursue his old passion for physics, especially since he had been a huge fan of Einstein and Max Planck since he was a high school student.

Steiner, of course, is not the rule, but rather one of the rare exceptions.

Manfred Steiner, who holds a Ph.D. in physics at the age of 89.

frantic racing

If we look at the educational landscape in the United States for example, we will notice a new phenomenon that has been on the rise in recent years, which is that PhD holders are getting smaller.

In a report on the Statista website, the number of PhD holders in various fields for the age group between 26-35 years reached 75% of the total number of PhD holders in the United States in 2019 (2). These are the ages of the generation born between the end of the eighties And the beginning of the nineties of the twentieth century, so what is the secret of the frantic race that is taking place abroad to obtain higher degrees after graduation from the university in a short period?

In the recent past, simply finishing primary school or finishing high school, getting a job and starting working life before the age of 20 was a matter of pride.

However, with the amazing progress that has afflicted humanity, it has become necessary to study more and learn more, so that the university is now one of the basics of competition within the labor market.

The matter became more complicated with the increase in the number of university graduates, so it became necessary to set up a new “refinery” to select the most qualified employees. Here, competition appeared in the master’s and post-baccalaureate diplomas.

The matter has developed further with competition in the labor market reaching an unprecedented level, and it has become necessary for your resume to be filled with certificates and achievements in order to be at an appropriate level to obtain a respectable job for which hundreds and perhaps thousands of people no less qualified than you are competing, now it is inevitable to obtain a Ph.D. Until you move up another ladder in the career ladder and get a better income.

The younger you get your PhD, the higher your chances of landing your dream job. Indeed, the Fields Medal, the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in mathematics, is only awarded to someone who achieves exceptional mathematical achievement before the age of 40. (3)!

Fields Medal Award (Wikipedia)

If we also take into account the "Flynn Effect", which means that the intelligence rates of new generations are steadily increasing over previous generations in a process that continues forever (4), this may mean that each new coming generation will be more efficient than the previous generations in The ability to learn, be creative, and complete postgraduate studies in a shorter time and with greater efficiency.

All of the above raises an important question: If you have reached your thirtieth year, does this mean that you missed the train, that you missed the golden moment and the certificates and achievements on your shoulders?

To answer this question, we must answer another question, which is how does the human mind learn in the first place?

road in the forest

Well, this is a gray area and we still don't know much about it, but we do know enough to learn and keep learning even as we get older.

To understand how the human brain learns, we need to take a quick look at the structure of the brain.

The brain, a gelatinous organ riddled with distinctively shaped grooves, is made up of an estimated 85 billion neurons.

The network of neurons within the brain (Free photo Brain Neurons).

Each neuron consists of a cell body from which a cylindrical axis extends, ending in dendrites that touch dendrites protruding from the next cell body.

Each neuron can communicate with 10,000 other neurons at the same time, creating an incredibly complex network of connections within the brain.

If you stand in a high-tree forest, and look up at its tangled and intertwined branches to the point where sunlight can hardly pass through, you may be able to form an idea of ​​the form of this neural network responsible for transmitting orders between brain cells and each other, and between brain cells and peripheral nerves responsible for executing commands (movement or speech, for example) and receiving external stimuli (seeing, hearing, or feeling your location in the room).

Every time you learn something new, the brain begins to extend new neural connections between cells, in a phenomenon called neuroplasticity. specific (5).

Your neural connections get stronger when you repeat a song over and over, or practice hitting the corner of the goal until you get the hang of it.

On the contrary, stopping the exercise or repeating the song for long periods results in the weakness and dismantling of these neural connections. It is as if the learning process makes a path paved for you inside that tangled forest to walk in, and this path remains clean and paved as long as you train continuously, while the road is paved. If you neglect to practice your sport or study your lessons, measure your attempts to learn a new language, a musical instrument, or even drive a car.

This may explain why it is so difficult to go back to school when you start school again after a reading-free summer break, for example.

to start late

If you are a young man in your early or mid-thirties, and you are thinking of starting to prepare a master’s or doctorate in your field to obtain better job opportunities, acquire a new language or learn programming to change your field of work completely, then it may be really difficult to return to learning after a period of leaving University, but the good news is that it is not too late for you, your brain is certainly able to learn again, but there are a number of advantages that you may have that really help you learn what you want at a relatively late age.

First of all, you are now more mature and rational than in adolescence, so your vision of your goals and what you want to achieve will become clearer and more solid in your mind.

Secondly, the experience you gained from contact with life and the labor market may make it easier for you to understand some subjects or learn a skill quickly, and you may also have an additional advantage if you can save some money, in order to help you pursue an old dream such as learning to play the piano, or choosing A new university or field of study.

In addition, learning languages ​​for you may be easier, because you will not start from scratch, but rather you will learn the grammar of the new language by comparing it with the grammar of your mother tongue or any other languages ​​you already master, and because your brain already contains ready-made neural pathways about how language works and its basic components that It does not differ much between the languages ​​of the world. This is why Noam Chomsky, the linguist, believes that a person is born with an innate ability to learn languages, because he already knows the composition of the language and the way it works, although you will face some obstacles if you start learning at a slightly late age, such as learning how to pronounce words. Or speak fluently without thinking about the sentence first, unlike children.

It is also common for people to believe that their ability to learn weakens with age, but this is not necessarily true, at least with regard to the human brain and its ability to acquire knowledge at different ages.

It is true that you will become slower in learning as you get older, but this does not mean that you will completely stop acquiring any new skills or languages. Rather, a relatively recent study published in 2018 in the "Aging" journal indicates that the neuroplasticity of the brain does not decrease. With age it was thought, it just works differently (6).

GABA plays an important role in neuroplasticity and therefore in the learning process. It is one of the famous neurotransmitters in the nervous system, and its primary function is inhibition.

In the learning state, the level of GABA decreases, and with it its inhibitory effect on the brain, especially in the sensory-motor and posterior cortex regions of the cerebrum, allowing the creation of new neural connections to help remember what you have learned.

Imagine with me that a traffic officer always resides in your brain and prevents random information from entering, and when the active learning process begins, the officer takes a break and the information begins to flow into your brain.

This physiological process does not differ between adults and children, but it appears that the learning environment itself is what makes the difference in learning between adults and children.

Participants in the aforementioned study were divided into two groups, each containing individuals of different ages, and they were asked to train on a number of tasks for the first time, meaning that they had no previous experience with these tasks specifically, but one of the two groups had to follow a regular training schedule, and the other Follow a random schedule.

The amount of GABA in the brain was measured before and after training on these tasks, and after several days, the participants' ability to repeat the same tasks and monitor the improvement in their performance.

In the study, the researchers found that the more complex and random tasks, and therefore more challenging ones, were associated with lower performance of participants of different ages in carrying out the tasks for the first time in the group that followed the random schedule, but this group was better at remembering the tasks upon re-testing than the group that followed structured training in the start.

By measuring the ratio of the GABA transporter among the participants from the two groups, it was observed that the ratio of GABA decreased significantly in the first group that was trained on tasks randomly.

On the contrary, the level of GABA increased in the second group, that is, its inhibitory effect on the brain increased, which explains their lower level of remembering tasks than the first group.

This discrepancy in the performance of the first group, which was bad at the beginning but better upon retraining, is explained by the phenomenon of "contextual interference", which means the effect of the context in which the learning process takes place, on the individual's performance in learning and remembering.

While randomness and increased challenge in learning lead to a lower level in the beginning, it carries better results in information retrieval or motor skills later.

You may not remember from college lectures except that unfamiliar lecture in which the lecturer presented the material in a sarcastic and unconventional way, and forget everything else.

So, whatever content you want to learn, a more challenging, more difficult and disruptive way of learning may be the perfect solution to increase neuroplasticity and learning ability, not only in children, but also in adults of all ages.

obstacles on the way

In the end, it may not be simple after all, but for reasons not related to your own ability to acquire knowledge, as much as it relates to the environment in which you live and work, which may not allow you the luxury of learning in the first place.

Studying while you are an adult, perhaps married, working and supporting a family, cannot be as easy as learning when you are a child who does not carry anything from the worries of the world except playing and exploring the world with a clean mind, or a young university student who is not asked of the responsibilities of life except to learn.

Achieving balance and organizing your time between work, study and taking care of your family will also be a challenge that must be well planned.

The other thing is that the adult is loaded with all the impressions and patterns that he has gained in his life, which dictate to him what he can and cannot do, unlike children, for example, because they do not have previous judgments about anything yet, so their view of any new experience is a neutral view. Inquisitive and inquisitive (7).

In addition, children have the luxury of asking naive questions without being accused of stupidity, which is one of the causes of anxiety and hesitation in adults, which represents a real obstacle in the way of acquiring knowledge and self-development.

On the other hand, however, it is possible to derive some hope from those models who decided that age is just a number, and achieved their deferred dreams of learning.

Mrs. "Sasikala Rawal" succeeded in obtaining a PhD in Space Sciences at the age of eighty, in the city of Eugene, India (8), as well as Mr. "Hebatullah Halimi", who is eighty years old, who obtained a PhD in Political Science from the University of Balochistan Pakistani (9), and there is that Kenyan woman who broke all the rules when she joined primary school with her children's grandchildren, to eradicate her illiteracy at the age of ninety (10)!

As for Manfred Steiner, who we started talking about, the doctorate degree he obtained in physics was not his first, as he obtained a doctorate in medicine and another in chemistry in 1955 and 1976.

It seems that the state of continuous learning keeps the mind alert, and protects the brain from the cognitive decline that occurs as a result of advancing age, as if the brain is a muscle, the more you exercise it, the stronger it becomes, and the more you neglect it, it becomes atrophy.

In this case, simple mental games that many believe strengthen memory or increase intelligence, such as crosswords and sudoku, are not sufficient. Rather, the brain needs a more challenging mental activity, such as learning a new language, or a new skill such as sewing or carpentry (11) .

Finally, you may get other unintended benefits in your lifelong learning journey.

Studies indicate that obtaining a high level of education can protect the brain from the deterioration of mental abilities, for reasons that are still being researched.

However, in a study issued by the National Institute on Aging in the United States in 2020, it was found that those with a higher level of education were able to maintain a good level of memory despite the presence of organic damage in the white matter of the brain, compared to those with a lower level of education, especially in the early stages (12 ).

This means that the earlier you start committing to continuous learning, the better chance you will have of preserving your mental abilities as you get older, but that doesn't mean you can start now, whatever your age.

These models, among many others, prove that it is never too late to learn.

But it just takes extra effort to face external obstacles, internal boredom, and stick to the plan you set to achieve your goal.

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