I’m now a few years over 50 and eyesight is also going down. A few years back I bought a stereo microscope (Amscope or clone with a big head), and with it soldering small SMT parts is now easier then soldering THT parts has ever been.
For students It would be nice to compare the size difference between the SMT and THT versions. There can be performance differences because SMT parts have lower parasitic properties then THT parts. There is also a huge difference i how small you go with SMT parts. The bigger versions are quite easy, even without a microscope, while the smallest will still be very difficult to hand dolser even with a microscope. for resistors, 0805 size is easy, most people with sharp eye sight find 0603 also quite doable, but going smaller and it starts becoming ever more difficult. See:
SMD Size chart for those of us who are spatially challenged - #12 by paulvdh
SOT-23 is a very common package for active parts and is easy to hand solder. SOT-23 -6 is the same size, but significantly more difficult to solder because it has 6 connections in the same package.
There are also “solder challenge” PCB’s. Usually they have a bunch of blinking LED’s in ever smaller size.