Aww guys, an 83 year-old architecture expert has just graduated from the Uni of Liverpool – Bundlezy

Aww guys, an 83 year-old architecture expert has just graduated from the Uni of Liverpool

Amongst all the graduation chaos last week, and a new wave of post-grads being released into the big bad world of work, some wholesome news seems to have gone under the radar.

The University of Liverpool is celebrating the graduation of John Harrison, an 83 year-old architecture student who has become one of the university’s oldest graduates, after completing 40 years of studies.

The scholar achieved his PhD just 65 years on from when he initially attended the red brick as an undergraduate. If that’s not determination, then I really don’t know what is.

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After finishing his undergraduate studies in 1963, John Harrison first found employment as a city conservation officer before leaving with the intention to document the architecture of the Himalayas. So exotic, right?

John Harrison, from Preston in Lancashire, said it has been “fun” to continue his passion for the subject, despite it being “a bit more work” than he had originally expected.

He recalled working on historic building conservation in the early years of his career, and how he decided, at the age of 44, that he wanted to take a different path.

“I needed a change so I bailed out and went travelling, and I fell in love with Himalayas” he reminisced. I wish I could do the same.

John began to study the local architecture there, and published several books on the topic before making the choice to formalise his research, which bagged him a spot in the Class of 2025 this year.

“I saw you could get a PhD by prior publication so I thought I’d just bang all these books in and that’ll give me a certificate” he said.

“But it turned out there’s a lot more to it. I’ve enjoyed it and it’s been good reviewing all the work that I’ve done”.

In conversation with the University of Liverpool, he expressed his pleasure that despite being the senior of all of the university’s staff, “nobody seemed to have been too shocked” to see him on the Russell Group campus. How wholesome is that?

“It’s what you feel like on the inside” he said.

“We can go to the gym, go swimming or walking to keep the body going – but you need something to keep the brain going as well”.

He said while it was a “relief” to have finally gained his doctorate it “was good to have done it”, even though he can’t quite remember his former graduation ceremony as an undergraduate. Fingers crossed his PhD ceremony was a bit more memorable.

The freshly graduated PhD student is now set to return to the Himalayas this weekend to work with a group of young Tibetan architects documenting monasteries in the Ladakh region. The grind never stops.

Congratulations John!

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