My children have all grown up, and I don't have any financial needs. I have always been interested in digital marketing, but have been an engineer all my life. Should I take up an internship?

Hi there, since you don't really need the money, you're doing it for passion, have you considered doing freelance digital marketing?

Pros:

• no need to constraint yourself to fixed working hours
• no office politics
• skips interview processes and adjustment to work place culture
• you set your own deadlines
• you decide how much you're worth and how much you want to charge

Cons:

• need to find your own customers
• need to have customer service mentality
• need to have discipline in managing own time to work
• no staff benefits, no fixed salary, no bonuses

Sure why not ?

But for better start instead of waiting to be employ, since you don't really need the $.
Try:

1. Go for DM related networking events.

2. Join and find some groups or restaurant or nearby nearboughood cafe and offer your pro bono service to help them do DM and manage their Social Media accounts and increase business.

3. You can show them your qualitifications and passion. If they are skeptical, you can negotiate to try help them out for like 3 to 6 months, and since you're providing pro-bono free services, I don't see why they wouldn't take it up or even work together with you manage it together!
   If I have a business, I would definite get your help to work this out together! :)
   Cheers!
   Jia you !:D

Absolutely love that you don't have financial worries since you took steps to build the buffer! I guess it's about enjoying yourself and learning as much as you can - I actually think companies would love having you on board!

Reminds me of this movie as well: The Intern - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2361509/ have a watch! I think it would resonate well with you at this stage in your life :)

Synopsis:

Seventy-year-old widower Ben Whittaker has discovered that retirement isn't all it's cracked up to be. Seizing an opportunity to get back in the game, he becomes a senior intern at an online fashion site, founded and run by Jules Ostin.

No harm trying, while it seems challenging for the older people to get job in new field, there are a couple of the govt scheme that encourage companies to hire the older folks. And if your desired internship pay is affordable to the company, they might be open to offer an internship!