Here is my code:

age = input("How old are you?: ")
print (age)
print (type(age))

Result:

How old are you?: 35
35
class 'str' <<--- This is problem!

But, If I use..

age = int(input("How old are you?: "))
print (age) 
print (type(age))

and entered "Alex"

How old are you?: alex
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/Users/kanapatgreenigorn/Desktop/test.py", line 1, in age = int(input("How old are you?: "))ValueError: invalid literal for int() with base 10: 'alex'

If you want it to return string then I think it does that by default but if you want it to return like a number or integer then you can put the int( in front of the input. You put in 'alex' and the reason why it came as an error was because 'alex' is a string. not an integer (which is int)