In the autumn I started classes at the Princeton Theological Seminary. It’s a late-in-life transition from my work as a television writer and producer to graduate student in theology. At some point, if I’m diligent in my studies, I may become an ordained Episcopal priest and a television writer and producer, which will allow me to find out what happens when you pitch a comedy series to a television network while wearing a priest’s collar.

But before I get there, I need to get a Master of Divinity degree. And while I’m doing that, I’m going to be spending a lot of time with people who are, on average, 25 years younger than I am. In other words, I’m the old weird guy in every class I take.

So when one of my classmates in my Old Testament and Exegesis class asked me about my Thanksgiving, instead of saying, “Great, thanks, how was yours?” I said, “Pretty chill,” and half-shrugged. Who said that? I thought to myself. Men my age really shouldn’t be calling things chill unless they’re talking about a bottle of wine. And then, as we walked into class, we passed another classmate and exchanged fist bumps, which are things I had never done unironically until I entered this new world full of chill fist bumps and hoodies.

Class was about to begin, so I sat down and got out my thin Remarkable 2 tablet and created a new document for class notes, then used my iPad mini to download the lecture presentation slide deck that the professor had uploaded to the class site on Brightspace so I could follow along during the class. 

And that’s when it struck me that in the previous few minutes, I had said and done things that were utterly unlike anything I experienced the last time I was in school, which was roughly coincident with Ronald Reagan’s presidency. I shouldn’t be surprised by this, I know. But for some reason, I’m still struck by the strange new weirdness of someone like me becoming a student again. I have a hard time being chill about it.

Everything is different. To keep track of classes and assignments, there is what Silicon Valley calls a “software solution” that gathers all the material for each class — readings, schedules, lecture slides, audio content, and even a place to upload assignments — on one app. The entire campus is connected to a blanket of Wi-Fi, pumping out a continuous loop of information and updates and class handouts. There are interactive study guides and apps that can offer quizzes and online flashcards (very useful if you’re learning Biblical Greek and trying to memorize declensions and tenses and vocabulary at an age when some of your peers are starting to forget where they left their car keys) and the dining hall serves food that comes from farms in the area, and they tell you which farms exactly on an LED screen as you enter.

Let me be clear: I am not complaining about this at all. It strikes me, after a full semester of back-to-school, that if you choose the right place and the right area of study — and I’m pretty certain I did both — getting an education today is a lot more dynamic and exciting than it was back when I had to type my English Literature papers on an IBM Selectric and use a toxic white fluid every time I misspelled Percy Bysshe Shelley.

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The real awkwardness comes with the professors. Most of them, I’m sure, appear impossibly old to my classmates. I remember when I was in college how ancient and wise my professors seemed. They had done things and lived lives. But my professors now are mostly in their early 40s, probably the same age as my professors were then, but that makes them seem impossibly young to me. And they look at me with the same deferential curiosity as my classmates. In many ways I’m Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School. Except, you know, more chill.

Rob Long is a television writer and producer, including as a screenwriter and executive producer on Cheers, and he is the co-founder of Ricochet.com.