Going back to college in your forties can sound scary to some people. After retiring from a media career in the Coast Guard, Eric Chandler adopted four teenagers.

In his mid-forties, he went back to college to study Communications — partly to update his skills, partly to be a role model for his kids. In this episode of My Better Half, he explains how adapting to college as a 40-something was much easier than he feared.

To those who might be reluctant to finish a degree as a non-traditional student, he says combining your work experience with higher education can make you a “humongous asset in the work world.”

Pam Haunschild rose to the top of her profession, teaching organizational theory at the business schools at Stanford and Texas-Austin. It's a long way off from her original interest, art. Pam had an art scholarship in front of her when she was young, but opted for the other path.

Then she retired from teaching and moved to Oregon. Now she's creating art on a regular basis, finding the joy in returning to an old love. Pam is the focus of the latest chapter of My Better Half, an examination of late-in-life accomplishments with JPR's Vanessa Finney.

Vanessa visits with Pam about her art and her inspirations in nature.

It's one thing to say, "life begins at 40 (or some other age)," and it's another to demonstrate it.

Singer Judy Collins, who turned 83 this year, has turned out an impressive body of work in the second half of her life. Her visit inaugurates a recurring segment on the Exchange, My Better Half, hosted by JPR's Vanessa Finney.

Not long after Judy Collins played to a big audience at the Britt Festival in Jacksonville, Judy sat down with Vanessa to talk about life and music and living well, well beyond the so-called "prime of life."