Midlife Transition Programs Move To Europe

As Longer Lives Merit A Midpoint Rethink

Oxford Camera, Photo by Ben Seymour on Unsplash

This is the third in a 3-part series on the spread of university Midlife Transition programs. Many of the schools introduced here will be the focus of Season 10 of my 4-Quarter Lives podcast this fall. I’ll be interviewing the Directors of many of the leading programmes. If you’re tempted, be sure to listen in.
Part 1 - Old School - an overview of the many programs now on offer globally
Part 2 - Next Chapter Matters New Programs at U. of Chicago and UC Denver

The idea of taking time out to transition reflectively into the second half of life and careers started out as an American idea. Born at Harvard over a decade ago, the concept has since spread to a dozen other US universities. Now it’s moving internationally with two programmes that started in the past couple of years in the UK and Switzerland, at Oxford and St Gallen universities.

Don’t want to go to the US? There are a growing number of alternatives. As the concept of midlife transition programmes spread, each school designs approaches which reflect the culture, values and communities of their respective institutions. The differences are fascinating and should soon offer a menu of varied educational offerings (and budgets) for midlife transitionists … everywhere.

Next programmes to launch are at the University of Cambridge and National University of Singapore. I’ll cover those in a follow up article this fall, after I’ve interviewed their directors on my 4-Quarter Lives podcast.