The Curriculum Of Curiosity | Crafting A Self-Made Education
As a lover of academia, I’ve debated on going back to school many times over the last decade. My first experience with college at 18 years old (17 years ago) wasn’t the greatest. I made some amazing friends and had a wonderful time for the most part, but I wasn’t ready to be there.
I had what I now know is undiagnosed ADHD, I didn’t have a strong academic support system in my personal life, and really at 18 years old, I just wanted to have fun with my friends. I went to college for journalism because I wanted to be a writer. I had written for our local newspapers in high school, and was blogging off and on, but I didn’t have a clear idea of what success would look like for me.
If I could go back in time, I’d want to go to university and get into the publishing industry. I know that I can still go back to school if I want, but as a 35 year old married mother, I can’t pick my life up and move to where the jobs are as easily as I could if I was 18.
With that being said, I’ve always found it ridiculous that we expect teenagers to know what they want to do for the rest of their lives. I fully support career pivoting at any age, but we need to acknowledge that it’s not an easy move. Since I went to college instead of university, I would have to commit to four years of undergrad before moving on to whatever specialty I wanted to take. Currently, I work an office job making okay pay, and since I’ve been here for 12 years, I’m given four weeks of paid vacation every year, good benefits, and great hours that work with our family’s schedule. I don’t love my job title, but I’m also not my job. My job provides an income and good work life balance, but my job is not my identity. I also do not take my job home with me, which is a huge bonus. My free time is my own.
Despite not doing great in school, I’m still proud of my writing accomplishments over the years. I’ve been a ghost writer for other bloggers, I wrote for a wedding magazine for three years, and have freelanced for Ageless NB magazine several times. Last year, I had one of my short stories published on The NoSleep Podcast as my first piece of published fiction. I’ve had my own blog posts go viral and get picked up by various online news organizations. Suffice it to say, I always find time for writing.
The decision to go back to school isn’t off the table, but when I ask myself, “Would going back to school really help my future career?” the answer is maybe, but probably not. I’m currently saving for my 11 year old son’s education, I can’t invest money in my own right now. I still want to write, publish novels, and eventually make my way into some kind of publishing career - even if it’s one I create myself. I’m just not confident a piece of paper with my name on it can help me get there.
I recently came to the revelation that I can continue learning on my own terms, without applying for university.
The piece of paper isn’t going to make me a better writer, but continued learning will. There are TONS of leisure learning courses online about any topic you could possibly imagine. Many are free, some are paid. Most universities have some form of leisure learning, whether it’s online or in person.
For the last three years, I’ve been writing a book.
My book is about a legal battle my grandfather went through in the 1970s-1990s, and theres a LOT of research involved. When my grandfather passed away, he left thousands of papers regarding the case - an unfinished handwritten manuscript, hundreds of legal documents, tape recordings, newspaper clippings, and hundreds of other artifacts that relate to that time in his life. My grandmother allowed me to have several totes full of this paperwork when she moved, and I’ve been sorting through it ever since. I plan to make a TikTok video and more posts detailing the organization and cataloguing involved in this kind of project.
I don’t have a legal background, so recently I decided that I wanted to learn more about contract law, to assist me in writing my book. It just so happens that Harvard University has a free online eight week course called Contract Law: From Trust to Promise to Contract.
I’m currently about 40% through this course, and I’ve loved every minute of it. The course is free to do, but you can pay $200 extra to get a certificate stating that you finished the course. Since I’m not taking this course as a requirement for anything, the certificate is not necessary. I still get access to the course, the quizes, and the forum without paying anything.
“If I study every day as a scholar would, what then is the difference between me and the scholar?” - @queenragmar on TikTok
I recently came across the user @queenragmar on TikTok, who has created her own curriculum to learn physics. She was inspired by the user @pamesanprincessx, who makes content around her own monthly curriculums. My discovery of these two women led me to find several other women who have decided to create their own personal learning plans as well.
Not being in university doesn’t mean that we have to stop learning. We can at any time, learn about any topic that we want. A few days ago, my husband and I went thrifting, and there was an entire section of high school, college and university text books for sale. Education is available if you really want it, and if you’re willing to forgo the piece of paper with your name on it, you can study whatever topics that interest you without spending thousands of dollars.
As a side note - I do encourage the pursuit of higher education at a university level as well (as mentioned above, I’m saving for my son’s education and want him to pursue whatever he wants), but if you’re at a stage in your life where you don’t know if it would benefit you and you still want to learn, leisure learning is an option.
My Fall Curriculum
Instead of doing a monthly curriculum like I’ve seen some other people do, I’m choosing to do it seasonally. As stated above, I work full time, I’m a mom, I’m writing a book, we’re planning a vacation, etc - I don’t have the time or energy to do this full time.
I also feel like one month isn’t long enough to really learn and experience most topics of interest. If you choose to do this monthly, you absolutely can carry topics from one month to another, but a seasonal curriculum just makes the most sense to me.
I will however break up what I’m learning each season into monthly blog posts to cover what we’re doing each month. I say “we” because I’ve convinced my husband to do this with me, but with his own topics of interest. We also want to learn one topic together. He loves reading and researching, so it didn’t take much convincing.
I’m going to make a separate post with more detail about what I’m learning this fall. One thing I know I’ll be doing is finishing my online Contract Law course. What I’m learning is already giving me a better understanding of some of the legal documents I’ve read in my book research.
I’ll list all of the topics I’m working on in my next post.
Not every subject has to have a course attached to it.
If you want to plan your own personal curriculum, don’t feel like you have to stick to online courses. Many of the women I’ve been following on TikTok use their local libraries to sign out books on their topics of interest. The internet is also a vast (and sometimes frightening) source of information. If you want to engage with other people to discuss your topic
You don’t have to stick to scholarly topics.
Your personal curriculum can be literally anything you want it to be. You could decide to learn everything there is to know about pottery, take a cooking class, do a deep dive on the migration patterns of sea turtles (my favourite animal), learn watercolour painting from YouTube tutorials, learn how to forage for food - the world is your oyster.
If you have ADHD, I just want to also say - you can learn new topics without making a career out of it. Yes, you can have hobbies, and learn about new things without trying to make money off of them. Do not run to Canva and start making new logos for your imaginary business just because you learned a new skill. Not everything has to be a business idea.
You can organize this however you please.
Your personal curriculum doesn’t have to be organized following a specific syllabus. Create your own plan using whatever guidelines work best for your lifestyle.
If you’ve got time, and a thirst for knowledge, I encourage you to create your own personal curriculum. Back-to-school isn’t just for the kids, and if nothing else, this gives you an excuse to buy new office supplies, because who doesn’t love school supply shopping??
If you want to share, I’d love to hear about what topics you’re learning this season!
D