Has anyone self taught themselves a subject

jjwinkle
Sun, 27 Dec 2015 20:23:17 +0000

Motivation is a particularly large issue in self-teaching. People learn all manner of things when they feel they need the information involved for some clear practical purpose (which can include satisfaction of a great curiosity). College serves as a kind of coach, pushing you to do something when the purpose is remote and you don’t readily see it.

If one’s motivation is to gain insight into life, one can look into what philosophers have said and explore those philosophic assertions that resonate and seem helpful. If one’s motivation is to gain knowledge that helps on the job, one would do well to look at the tenets of psychology, economics and sociology. The job-experienced person will cling to what resonates and fits personal observations. This kind of study is efficient, because you only learn what you can use. This is analogous to running for your health.

However, if one’s motivation is to match the attainments of conventionally educated people, then matching the syllabi of traditional courses in the subject areas is called for. In this case, I think it’s harder (but not impossible) to keep the point in mind when self-studying. Also, whether you’ve “qualified” (proved you’ve performed on a par with others in learning it) will be an issue. For this, I guess, one should get old actual college tests and self-administer them in circumstances (time) equal to how they were administered in the college course. This is analogous to running to prove you’re as fast as the average runner; you need to do it in a race or with time pieces of proven accuracy.