The Late Bloomer Syllabus

Lifelong learning for people past forty

Harold Nkemelu2 episodes1 min of audio51 playsEpisodic

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S1 · E2Oct 1, 20260:4222 plays Preview

A piano exam at 61, with Margaret Oyelaran

Retired midwife Margaret Oyelaran passed her grade one piano exam at 61 after 40 years of delivering babies. She and Harold talk about stiff fingers, kind teachers and practising in front of grandchil…

S1 · E1Sep 14, 20260:4229 plays Members

The semester I failed at 46

Harold opens the show with his own story: leaving the bank, the humiliation of a failed first semester, and what he changed about how he studied so the second one worked.

About the show

The Late Bloomer Syllabus is a weekly interview show for anyone over 40 who has a course bookmarked and a reason not to start it. Harold Nkemelu was a Lagos bank manager until 46, when he enrolled in a part-time history degree alongside students half his age. He now talks every week, for around 40 minutes, with people who learned something serious late: a retired midwife who sat her first piano exam at 61, a trucker who studied for the bar while driving, a grandmother finishing a maths PhD. The conversations are candid about memory, energy, money and the fear of looking foolish, and each one ends with a practical segment, the next small step, aimed at a listener who wants to begin this week. Harold is warm, slightly impatient with excuses, and open about his own failed first semester.

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