An 83-year-old great-grandmother and homemaker, Barbara Ingram of Dallas decided to set some new goals and keep herself busy by enrolling in Harvard University.
Harvard University was established in 1636. Composed of twelve graduate and professional schools, including the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, it is one of the most prestigious schools in the United States, with over 400,000 alumni worldwide.
According to their website, “Harvard is at the frontier of academic and intellectual discovery. Those who venture here—to learn, research, teach, work, and grow—join nearly four centuries of students and scholars in the pursuit of truth, knowledge, and a better world.”
Ingram is began her fourth semester of enrollment at the university this month, where she attends her courses online. She said her choice to go to the college stemmed from her desire to do more in life.
“I still want to be able to go out and be challenged. I got bored,” she told ABC 7 News.
Ingram has even managed to gain some “popularity” from attending the Ivy League school. A stranger in support of her new journey placed a billboard at Park Lane and Greenville in Dallas, announcing her academic voyage.
“I couldn’t process it the first time that [my husband] Stan and I pulled up to look at it,” Ingram said of the first time she saw the billboard.
She shared, “There was a lady out there, taking a picture [of the billboard], and I said, ‘Why are you taking a picture of this’? And she said, ‘Because I want my mother to see this’.”
Ingram expressed that she hopes her attendance at the elite school inspires others, whether youths or seniors, to try to reach their goals. She explained that she appreciates the attention, but wants the takeaway from her story to be that “ages are just numbers”; even someone her age can chase their dreams. Ingram told ABC 7, “We’ve done a lot of living, but we still have a lot of living to do.”
The great-grandmother has received plenty of support from her family (and strangers) as she advances in her online studies of economics and history.
