Experiment

I decided to sign up for another experiment today.

I can't afford college, as the last post implies. This sucks on multiple levels, but the most fundamental is that, if I won the lottery tomorrow, I would almost certainly become a full-time student for life. Alas, I can't have that.

But I can have some of the experience.  I've decided to experiment with self-directed education.  College without the college.

I plan on spending three hours a week on each "subject", doing my damnedest to learn everything I can about it.  I'll pick five subjects at a time.

Last night, I wrote a list of all the skills I would like to learn before I die.  A bucket list for nerds, I suppose. Not all of them are really "collegian"... for example, I would like to study role-playing game design in earnest at some point.

To start with, I will be studying (I picked some relatively "easy" subjects to begin with):

• German
• Knot-tying
• Zen
• Drawing, and
  
• Advanced Rails
  

I should say: I realize this isn't an original idea. I'm actually a little ashamed to be announcing this, because it's something I should have done long, long ago. Frankly, I couldn't tell you why I hadn't considered doing this before. I guess the idea just felt kind of silly. (South Harmon Institute of Technology, anyone?) On some levels, it is silly.  But I'm approaching it as an experiment: we shall see what kind of results it yields, and I will record my results. If it's something I find ineffective, I'll bail.

I begin tomorrow.