Ralph Thompson is enjoying the mental stimulation of the political studies paper he is taking at the University of Otago Summer School. Photo by Bruce Munro.
Enrolments at the summer school are almost 10 per cent up on last year, boosted not just by groups of young students from Canada and the United States, but also by senior students such as Dunedin resident Mr Thompson who turned 77 on Monday.
Mr Thompson is halfway through a 10-week summer semester taking Political Studies paper 317, News media and international crises. He is one of 1825 students enrolled for a total of 2379 papers, 213 higher than last year.
The paper was on a topic he was interested in, but to which he had not given a lot of thought. For the past five weeks he has been busy comparing, for example, United States media treatment of missile attacks on airliners by their own and Russian military, and asking why we heard more about the conflict in Kosovo than the fighting in the Congo.
‘‘I enjoy the intellectual challenge of being directed to material and subject areas I probably would not otherwise have considered,'' Mr Thompson said.
During his working life Mr Thompson was a carpenter and joiner, primary and secondary teacher and disputes tribunal referee.
This is his third summer school. He has also taken some regular semester classes and completed a graduate diploma in 2007. His classmates, most of whom are in their late teens and early 20s, treat him like an ordinary student.
His wife is supportive and his friends are no longer surprised. ‘‘I do it to see if I still can,'' he said. ‘‘It's a challenge because you have to produce the goods if you want to pass. ‘‘Last Friday I had to hand in a 3500-word essay - now, that took a bit of effort.
‘‘I think a lot of older people feel they can't do it. But it's just a matter of doing it and then I think they would find they enjoy it.''
Classes finish on February 13 and examinations end a week later. Mr Thompson is not sure what he will study next.
‘‘That's the thing about retirement, you can do whatever you want.''