do you feel that age affects the ease with which you do / get through your PhD. am amongst the youngest in my department at 23 and i sometimes feel that i should have got more experience before enrolling on the PhD. The reality tho is that even though i had gone for work experience first, it would not be an area related to my thesis.

your views?

hiya jojo im 25 now :( and feel old!!! 5 years away from wrinkles and no man and no kids and (hey its not so bad after all hm.... !) x

24 but still as naughty as when i was 5 ;)

26

Worked as a journalist and then as a political lobbyist before starting my PhD - not really related to my thesis, but really glad I 'worked' first

I'm 22 and am pretty much the youngest too. I don't feel particularly weird about it, but then I think it depends on each individual. Everyone always thinks that I'm older than I am (not through my looks, thank God!) but because of my personality. I think my partner being a lot older, as well as all his friends, sort of puts a different perspective on things for me! All though I do think the more experience you have the better and easier everything gets.

I'm 28, and our youngest student is 21 (she has just finished her MSc before she started).

I'm 17 and doing an advanced PhD study thing.. Only joking I am 25

I'm 21 and I;m the youngest in my department (i think). Not 22 til next May....

Donut, if you are 25 years old and 5 years away from wrinkles, then I am 5 years away from my grave! I am 32

I am 30, but I started my PhD when I was 26.

Donut, from my experience, it all starts to go bad at 25. Things that were once pert, start to sag. Things that were once elastic, start to wrinkle. Things that were once blonde, start to grey (in truth, my first grey hair was spotted on my 30th birthday - no joke - on the morning of my 30th, I had a huge spot on my chin and spotted my first grey hair - arrrghhh!!!). Things you once popped in your mouth and forgot about, now seem to stick to your thighs and no amount of effort on the treadmill removes them. After 25 you start to loathe Newton and his horrible gravity. So depressing.

C'mon!! I'm 35 and the wrinkles don't disturb me at all! The thirties are the best years of your life, believe me! Age is what you fell not stupid wrinkles or grey hair (although you can dye it). I fell great and I have much more energy than some young early twenties. Also sex is much better at thirties...

Good for you, paulasbrito.

But for me, I would take my looks of my late-teens/early 20s any day. I am not claiming I was a supermodel (like pea was!) but I definitely would prefer the body, firmness, ability to eat anything and absence of wrinkles of my youth than what is happening to me today...and I am only 30!

I guess for me it is all about how you look on the outside giving you confidence on the inside. I don't think it is vanity, it is just when I feel good about how I look, I have confidence.

Vanity is not an indicator of very high intelligence.

It is part of the human lifecycle to get older and you should see it as a natural process rather than something horrible. People with such an attitude are the ones who pay loads of money for beauty operations and are shocked about the rubbish results afterwards.

I wish I was older, then I had more money on my account and probably a PhD!

I'm 23....and feel prematurely aged. I do sometimes feel like I look like a little boy in comparison to the academics and RA's in the school. I guess I am in awe of them all, and that doesn;t make me feel very adult like!

I'm in my second year and 26 ...tragically I feel that I peaked when I was eighteen! Am fighting every wrinkle, grey hair and toning things up as best as I can ... I'll go down fighting But in many ways feel more confident now than I did earlier on, just dont mention the bags under the eyes!