Newly-graduated ‘Doctor' Nick Axten said it took him "a long hard think" to get his doctoral dissertation in order, which is probably what most Ph.D. candidates would say.

Unlike most candidates however, it took Dr. Axten 5 decades before the 76-year-old student finally graduated with a Ph.D. in mathematical sociology at the University of Bristol.

He started all the way back in 1970, the year he received a prestigious Fulbright scholarship at the University of Pittsburgh. But after five years he returned to the UK with the Ph.D. unfinished.

"What I was trying to do in the early 70s was exceptionally difficult," said Dr. Axten. "Some problems are so great it takes the best part of a lifetime to get your head around them."

He restarted the process at Bristol 7 years ago with the aim of finishing a Masters in the Arts, before carrying on to a Ph.D. in Philosophy, finishing in 2022 aged 75. This year, he received his Doctorate in front of his wife Claire and 11-year-old granddaughter Freya.

Dr. Axten's research, which he hopes to publish, builds on the ideas he was working on in America five decades ago.

It's a new theory for understanding human behavior based on the values each person holds. Dr. Axten says it has the potential to change our view of behavioral psychology.

During a varied career, Dr. Axten married, fathered 2 children, lived all over the UK, and was the creator and principal author of the school teaching program ‘Oxford Primary Science.'

Back in 1967 when he started his undergraduate degree in Leeds, UK, men had long hair and women were wearing miniskirts. Smoking inside university buildings was the norm and personal computers were still sci-fi.

"It was still flower power and there was a revolutionary feel. It was the time of the Vietnam War, Paris, Prague, and student sit-ins," he reminisced. "Sociology and psychology were suddenly boom subjects. I went to study them because I wanted to understand people."

"I have loved being a student again at Bristol University. All of the other philosophy graduate students were around 23 but they accepted me as one of their own."

"Nick was an incredibly enthusiastic, energetic, and committed student during his time here," said his University of Bristol supervisor, Professor Samir Okasha. "It's fantastic to see him graduate half a century after he started his original Ph.D."

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