I'm thinking this is ageism?

[QuirstThenching]

I'm a mature student at college (29) in my second year. I've never felt like a mature student, my classmates see me as one of them as far as I know and had a whale of a time last year. Just gone back for this term, new classes and been put into groups for main project by the lecturer.

I am the youngest in my group of four. It is very obvious that we are the 'old' group in the room. I feel singled out, I feel awkward, I feel like I'm being looked at as one of the old ones and that I'm different from the other students.

I don't believe this was a coincidence of randomly assigned groups. I also don't believe that if there were four students in the class in wheelchairs (for example) that they would be grouped like this.

Am I being over sensitive about this? I spoke to a couple of the people in the class who both had noticed the group being the older ones.

I don't know what I want to do or want done about it, I have nothing against my group so don't particularly want moved, I've just had a horrible outcast feeling since it was announced.

AIBU?

Tbh you sound rather ageist about your fellow mature students
I agree. The teacher probably thought you had more in common with them and that you wouldn't want to babysit another group of students.

Your post itself is ageist. He might have thought that's where you would be most comfortable. Speak to him

It would be better to have a mixture of ages.

I'm 41 and my friends at work range from 19 to 69..

Maybe the youngsters said when they were in a group with a mature student that they felt the mature student took over the lead and organised everything etc so it worked better this way.

I get what you're saying Questthursting and I wouldn't be surprised if the other members of your group also feel uncomfortable being grouped together as the 'older' students. I would liken it to being grouped according to ethnicity, race or sex.

I think it's maybe come across that I want to be in the younger group, rather than that I just want to be in a group of anyone? At work I work with people of all ages, in the 'real world' as it was put, the issue I had was with there being an age split in the groups at all.

The posters who said that a totally mixed group would be best, that's all I meant.

I'm not going to say anything unless someone else brings it up.

I rarely assign students to groups. However, I have noticed that any mature students (by that I mean those returning to education after a few years out) tend to be more diligent than students who have come straight through to university. Consequently, they tend to gravitate towards one another. If I was allocating groups, I would possibly put the more mature ones together if I had no other way of gauging diligence and ability, partly because the mature students are more likely to complain if they are grouped with less diligent students.

A good lecturer will set project groups according to how best they'll work together so students get the best from the experience. Maybe they think it's the best group for you to work with and will have an interesting dynamic that should work well.

Either way, I'd be reluctant to start asking to move groups because you're bound to piss off the people you're leaving behind! If you're in the last term that wouldn't be too much of a problem but less than halfway through your award (I'm assuming) life could get uncomfortable.

And I agree with PPs, the ageism seems to be coming from your direction. Sorry.

Nope, I'm with you. I used to lecture and run groups and deliberately divided people up so that the groups were mixed.

It's unlikely to be a coincidence that there is a group of students that contains all the oldest members of the class

There was plenty of ageism when I did my nurses training - from both age groups. It took months for people to lose some of their judgements about the 'other' group. I think ageism is just as prevalent as other isms though.

I've been one of the older members of a similar group and I didn't like it one bit as I felt my age was being judged as my defining feature. The op may not be the only person in her group that feels uncomfortable.