(originally a Reddit post)
I want to create and follow a university-like program for myself. Has anyone done this before?
Just to set some context: I graduated with a BSc Computing Science degree last year. I also worked as a software engineer throughout my last year of university, so I got some industry experience before I graduated. I’m interested in further education, but I have varied interests and I can’t decide on a single field to get a Master’s or a second Bachelor’s degree in.
I’ve considered the traditional education route, but I realize that even if I do find a degree program that matches some of my interests, I would still have to study other subjects that are part of the program that I don’t particularly want to. That’s true for any degree program, I know, but it means that other subjects in different fields that I would prefer to study become opportunity costs.
If I were after the credentials I’d do it, but for me it’s a lot more about the learning and growing experience.
This thought process led to the birth of the idea: curating a university experience for myself.
I would draw up a curriculum, based on the things I want to learn. I’m currently quite into expanding my knowledge of economics and finance, and I’ve been wanting to learn math beyond what was taught in my CS degree at university. For subjects like these, I’ve found more than enough courses on sites like Coursera or MIT Opencourseware. I’ve even looked into the BSc Math program overview at the university I did my Bachelor’s from, and the courses in that program are a pretty good starting point. For courses like these I can find past exam papers, take the latest one as a ‘final assessment’ and grade myself using the mark scheme. I do find that I retain knowledge better when I’m applying what I’m learning hands-on though, so if I can think of a capstone project related to each course I want to take, I’ll consider that above a written exam.
I’m also very interested in learning new languages and exploring new cultures. So I’m thinking that I’ll study in 3-month-long ‘sprints’, where in each sprint I’d stay in a different city. During those 3 months I’d learn the language of the country (I’ve thought of Tokyo, Japan to begin with) in addition to my online courses. Staying in the city will mean I’ll definitely be immersed in the culture, but I’m thinking of staying in hostels — maybe even work in one part-time — just to put myself out of my introverted comfort zone and make sure I socialise enough. I can look into taking language proficiency tests as a kind of ‘exam’ at the end of the sprint.
Another thing I’ve been interested in lately is filmmaking. I have no background in this whatsoever, and I’m not sure how well I can teach myself or what to aim for, but a very rough idea is that I’ll collect footage throughout the sprint, and I’ll use that time to come up with a narrative for a short film, and in the last few weeks I’ll put it together as a sort of ‘sprint recap’ — a capstone project.
I won’t be studying the same subjects every sprint — I’ve only thought about the first one for now and depending on how well that works out I’ll plan ahead. I’m not sure if this can even be called ‘university’, but it’s the closest thing I can think of.
And there will be challenges, I’m sure. Settling in to a new country, setting deadlines for myself and keeping myself motivated and accountable. More that I probably haven’t even thought of. But if I’m able to learn even half of what I think I will, it’ll be worth it.
Obviously I have to put a lot more thought into planning this whole thing.
I’ve researched whether people have done these sorts of things before. The closest I found were Make Your Own Masters, The Open University, and Xixi Chen’s answer to this Quora post (which is actually the closest to what I’m looking for). In fact in Xixi’s post I like the idea of finding an advisor to oversee my progress on a very high level, and I think I want to incorporate that in my plans.
But I guess my question really is, has anyone done this sort of thing on their own before, and do you have any advice for me? Potential downsides or challenges that I haven’t considered, maybe, or just your own experiences to share?