Addendum to last post

I forgot to mention, in my last whiny post, the sort of split-personality feeling I sometimes have.

I posted before about the mock-interviewer who totally couldn't believe that I was his age and insisted I didn't look any older than the rest of the students. (I must have been especially well-rested that day!)

A judge I interviewed with made a similar (though not as emphatic) comment, about me not looking much older than the average student.

But I also bailiffed for a moot court competition on my campus, and the competing teams (not from my school), including other non-trads, were clearly startled to find out I was the bailiff (a law student job) rather than a judge (a job for practicing lawyers/judges/other eminences, like various legislators). (I'll grant you I had dressed nicely, to represent my school blah blah blah, but still.)

And one day, I was wearing my "X Law School Class of 2011" sweatshirt. (It is EXTREMELY comfortable.) I'm walking down the stairs in the library, and a woman (student) walking up the stairs sort of stopped, and looked at me, and said, "Are you...a STUDENT??"

There may have been some simple explanation for that comment, but all I could think was that she was so baffled to see me wearing "student" gear that she couldn't stop herself from saying something. (To which my response is kind of WTF?, but whatever.)

So age is an odd (and clearly relative) thing!

(And I really never can tell exactly how old my classmates are anyway - I kind of lump them together into "traditional (= way younger than me)" and "non-trad (= only slightly younger than me)," although I know that there is quite a bit more nuance to it than that!)

Comments

[Dr. Moonbeam]

I totally understand. Students in my program are, I think, more often non-trad, but there are certainly those who are early- to mid-20s also. What weirds me out more is both being a master's student and having master's students of my own, simultaneously.

[Rokeya]

Age can be a funny thing. The other day I went to our registrar's office to change a student grade that had appeared incorrectly the previous term. The male student worker told me to have my department e-mail the registrar to get the grade changed. Confused, I told him I was the professor and that I didn't understand why the admin person in my department should e-mail them. Couldn't I get the grade changed by coming in in person? He DIDN'T BELIEVE ME that I am the professor and doubtfully said, "Well, if your name really is listed as the instructor, you could try and e-mail us." Oh, please. I even pulled out my faculty ID, and he just would not believe that I am a professor. I later followed up with an e-mail to the registrar in which I explained what had happened and requested the grade change. I left off anything about ageism, though, because if they find out this happened because I look young? They won't call it ageism. They will laugh at me and think it's "cute" or "funny." Because that's how most people read it--they do not see it as discrimination, even though it kept me from doing my job.

I really detest this kind of ageism. I don't find it flattering, I don't longingly hope this moment will last forever so that when I am "older" I can cherish it. Ageism is ageism to me, period. It works both ways!