Ideal age of nursing students

[dadaui66]

I am a 39 year old second year nursing student.  To nurses and fellow nursing students, how old do you think a student entering nursing school for her or his RN degree should be?  What kind of personal characteristics should she or he have?

[Hannahbanana, BSN, MSN]

I’ve told this story before, but here goes again. My oldest student was in her sixties. All her life she wanted to be a nurse but her husband kept telling her she was stupid, incompetent, and lazy and could never do it. So she never did. 
And when the sunuva*** up and died, she took the insurance money and went to nursing school. 
She wasn’t outstanding one way or another academically but she had one thing the 18- and 19-yr-olds didn’t have, and that was maturity. She had seen her parents and siblings die, had endured some long years, and understood much better than they did what it was like to be in that bed. Her white hair and calmness made her patients trust her. 
I lost track of her a few yrs after she started working, but she did well and her coworkers loved her.