![HDS students have a discussion in the library while seated.](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/styles/hwp_21_9__1920x825/public/2026-04/10062025-StudentPhotoshoot-0581_0.jpg?h=46e81947&itok=mI2o-KA0) # Life at HDS as an Advanced Career Professional How do current HDS students navigate Harvard Divinity School after years in other industries, fields, or ministries? Read how a restaurateur, a rabbi, and a lawyer integrate what they’ve learned from their professions in the classroom. April 15, 2026 ![HDS Admissions Blog](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/2025-09/Admisisons-Blog-Logo-200px_0.png) ## Rob Anderson | Master of Divinity ’27 I don’t recommend coming to Divinity School until after 40. I’m kidding. Mostly. The truth is, I’ve never felt better about being middle-aged than I have sitting in my classrooms at HDS. It’s because Divinity School is about learning how to make meaning from your life and putting that meaning in service of something beyond yourself. In that respect, being 43 feels less like a liability and more like a gift. I arrived at HDS after collecting three other degrees and building two different careers, one as an opinion journalist and the other as a chef and restaurant owner. By the time I got here, I had a real pile of material to work with: mistakes, heartbreaks, career changes, bad decisions, some good decisions, grief, love, collapse, reinvention, and a few small pieces of hard-won wisdom. At HDS, all of that experience became useful. Things I once thought of as detours or damage felt like part of my training. The layers of a lived life haven’t gotten in the way of learning. They’ve deepened it. My younger classmates are often brilliant, thoughtful, and refreshingly open to possibility. They have time on their side, and there is something beautiful about the way they’re grappling with big questions before life has hardened them. But I have found a different kind of freedom in arriving here now. I am less worried about grades, less interested in performing intelligence, and more able to recognize what actually matters to me. I am not here to build a résumé or audition for a future self. I am here because I am less interested in becoming someone new than in making better use of the life I’ve already built. We are taught to think of middle age as the beginning of diminishment. At HDS it feels instead like a strange and beautiful advantage: a moment when the mess of life has stopped feeling like something to pack away with mothballs in the attic and instead feels like the most precious of raw materials. ## Chris Mann | Master of Theological Studies ’27 The morning after the U.S. Presidential election in November 2024, I found myself trying to figure out my next steps. I had spent my entire career at a large New York-based law firm, but if ever the universe was asking me, “Need a minute?” This was it. I did some soul-searching, applied to Harvard Divinity School's two-year MTS program on New Year’s Eve, and the rest is history. I have been far happier at HDS than I could have dreamed. Having gone to Harvard for both college and law school, I have found the HDS faculty to be more accessible and more committed to serving their students than I ever remembered in my earlier experiences. I don’t discount the possibility that my improved experience might be more about me as a mature student than I realize. Having another chance to do intellectually challenging academic work, but at a relatively advanced stage in life, when most things seem easier than they did years ago, is a wonderful gift. And my fellow students are talented, diverse and welcoming. I count my blessings every day. The required reading can be voluminous and the workload can be heavy at times, but it’s joyful, uplifting work. The intellectual, spiritual, and social aspects of going back to school, especially at HDS and in Cambridge, are powerful and energizing. ## Craig Marantz | Master of Theological Studies ’27 My name is Craig, and I am a rabbi semi-retired from congregational life. I am so inspired to be an emerging scholar at HDS at this age and stage of my life. Every day here feels like a blessing. To wake up each morning, make my way to campus, and spend the day with our amazing learning community is a joy. My return to school as an advanced-career professional means approaching my learning with perhaps a different intentionality. I have changed as a learner. My thinking has become more crystallized than fluid. This means I have discovered that I can dive deeply into close reading, careful analysis, and thoughtful construction of papers—practices that demand a “slow look” at more focused questions. But, I’ve also learned that timed exams (Yes, there can be a few!) do not always reflect my strongest work or my ease with internalizing and applying broad swaths of information. Pace matters. Course selection matters. Putting together the right combination of classes matters. And, of course, putting forth the most effective effort matters. I have also learned that flourishing at HDS is not only intellectual. Some of my best writing flows have come alongside taking up new instruments, especially acoustic bass guitar and banjo. For me, creativity, study, and gratitude now belong together–as does the warm nurturing of faculty, staff, and fellow students. I feel so happy here.