A Time of Opportunity: Alejandra Ramos ’26GS on Coming Back to School in Her 40s

“It's very chic to come back to school in your 40s—everyone should do it.”

For Alejandra Ramos ‘26GS, returning to school after 20-plus years away, particularly at Columbia, felt like kismet, with a dash of serendipity. Before enrolling at GS, she dabbled with a few classes here, a workshop there, testing the waters the way a chef might create a recipe, adding a pinch, tasting, and perhaps most importantly—trusting her instincts. A longtime New Yorker, she would often pass by Columbia, an ever-present possibility, quietly asking herself: was this something she wanted? With a flourishing television career—hosting PBS’s “The Great American Recipe” and appearing regularly on the “Today” show—another question lingered. Could she finally finish what she started two decades earlier?

“I remember I told my husband: ‘I think I'm gonna do this.’ And he's like, ‘Of course, you are. You've known this since the beginning,'” she recalled, smiling at the memory. “When I first started, one of the things I said to myself was ‘I just want to graduate. I just want to complete this degree that I had walked away from so many years ago.’”

That unfinished chapter began at George Washington University in the fall of 2001, where she planned to study politics. A week into her first semester, the events of September 11 unfolded. With family ties to New York and a rapidly changing campus climate, her academic path began to feel misaligned. In that uncertainty, she gravitated toward something more grounding: cooking. “I would spend all my time cooking in our very well-appointed dorm,” she said. “It also became the way that I was able to channel stress or anxieties or just creativity.”

As her passion for cooking grew, so did the possibility of a different future. With the encouragement of her mother, she stepped away from college during her junior year to attend a culinary program in Florence. Ramos immersed herself in Italian food, language, and culture, effectively laying the foundation for a 20-year career in food and storytelling.

This intersection first took shape in publishing. She began as an international editions editor at Cosmopolitan, later producing food content for the newly launched Cosmo for Latinas. When the team needed someone to promote the new magazine on television, she recalled, “They just sent me there, like, ‘You speak Spanish, go do it.’”

Ramos quickly discovered she had a natural affinity for television. What began as cooking segments on local Spanish- and English-language news stations expanded to syndicated and national appearances. In August 2015, she made her debut on the “Today” show, where, over the next decade, she became a familiar face doing food and lifestyle segments.

“Food has been the language I've used to communicate in print and writing and on TV for the past 20 years now, and I loved it so much. But when I turned 40, I hit this point where I wanted more depth. I wanted more than was possible in a three- to five-minute TV segment,” she said. “A lot of it came from the fact of being a Latina woman on television where you have this privilege and pressure of representation.”

Noticing the profound emotional resonance of culturally specific dishes she’d feature on television, especially among underrepresented audiences, she sought to explore how art and food become powerful vessels for expression and identity. “When people don't see themselves represented, it puts that much more pressure onto those moments,” Ramos said. “Through writing and through art, we can really explore the ways that people communicate and the things that they feel passionate about.”

This curiosity led her to pursue an art history minor alongside her creative writing major at GS, deepening her interest in how people connect to objects when words are not enough. Ramos immersed herself in the Core, approaching her classes with an eagerness to learn. Even ones that seemed unrelated to her majors at first glance, like science, offered her new ways of thinking about art, poetry, and material culture, reinforcing the realization that nothing exists in isolation. “I love those connections,” she said. “That's the beauty of the Core Curriculum.”

Just as meaningful as the Columbia academic experience was the sense of belonging she found. From her first day on campus in January 2024, Ramos never felt out of place. “I never felt like I didn't belong,” she said. “Yeah, maybe I'm twice as old as most of the people in this classroom, but it just worked. I felt like this was where I was meant to be.”

Her unique perspective, shaped by an unconventional path, influenced how she showed up in the classroom. “When you're older, you have this natural confidence, like asking questions I know that, 20 years ago, I probably would have been more hesitant to do,” she said. “I love the student that I am today, and I would not be able to be the student had I not had those 20 years of experience between when I first left school.”

Balancing school with a demanding production schedule came with a steep learning curve. Ramos filmed the last two seasons of “The Great American Recipe” while taking a full course load, often submitting discussion posts at 3 in the morning before a 6 a.m. call time or sneaking in reading between takes, books tucked beneath her skirt. Exhausting as it was, the memory now stands as a vivid snapshot of a beautifully hectic moment in her life, complete with academic tidbits sprinkled in. When watching certain episodes, “I literally could be like: oh yeah, that was the morning that I wrote a paper for sacred space in South Asia, and then I did an elimination round.”

Prioritizing school sometimes meant turning down professional opportunities, but Ramos remained intentional about her choices. “From the moment I first started, what I told myself was that ‘This is the choice I'm making. This is the path I want to follow right now, so I'm always going to prioritize school,’” she said. “And sometimes you have to say no to things in order to allow for new yeses to come into your life.”

While she’s stepped back from the pace of television appearances for now, it hasn’t felt like a loss. Instead, she’s focused on the present, celebrating achievements two decades in the making: graduating with her bachelor’s degree, earning Phi Beta Kappa honors, and receiving the Dean’s Prize in Creative Writing. This fall, she’ll begin a master’s program at the Bard Graduate Center, studying material culture, with the goal of pursuing her PhD in art history.

When friends react to the length of that path, Ramos is unfazed. “The time is going to pass anyway,” she said. “So whether you do it one class at a time or one semester at a time, it’s always going to be valuable. That one class—it may feel like it’s not enough, but it is.”

Her advice is simple but hard-won: your timeline is your own. “It doesn’t have to be based on everybody else’s ideas of success.”

It’s a message she hopes to share widely, especially with those who may not see themselves reflected in traditional academic paths. “I really want people who wouldn't think that this is possible for them to find out that it is possible. I want there to be more 40-year-olds. I don't think that being in your 40s is just about perimenopause, despite what Instagram is telling you,” she said. “This is a time of opportunity.”

That sense of possibility is exactly what drives her forward. “Five years ago, I had absolutely no idea that this is where I was going to be at this point in life, and that's incredible,” she said. Then, added with a smile: “I'm 43 now—50 is going to be insane. Watch out!"