A Matter of Life and Death: Teaching Undergraduates About the End of Life

As the population ages, the number of careers that intersect with aging is expected to grow. However, many young people lack an interest in working with aging populations. As previous work has shown, though, students’ interest in aging careers may be stimulated by coursework and experiential activities related to aging. Despite being a normative developmental process, anxiety about death and dying may be particular barriers to students developing interest in aging, and these topics may be particularly difficult subjects to teach in the college classroom. Here, strategies and activities for teaching the end of life are offered.