<p>Thanks for the book suggestion, texas - its ideas really coincide with my thoughts. While I do have to say that I have learned from school, I really could learn at a much faster pace - plus, school takes much self-motivation out for self-education and I find myself performing tasks only as much as school wants me to (now as my homework load has decreased, I’m sleeping far more than I need to, for example). But sadly, there is such a huge prejudice among many people that home-schooled kids are socially deformed.</p>
<p>If I could make a good estimate, I could cover at least one chapter of a college textbook per day in self-education (so let’s say, that would give a month per course. Though I’ve only seen introductory textbooks that aren’t difficult). This would mean in an entire month that I would finish an entire college course in whatever.</p>
<p>One of the huge problems with education is also complacency. Though it’s easy for me to realize my complacency, it’s also more difficult for me to get over it. Sometimes I don’t self-educate myself in something because I expect a teacher to cover it later and then I convince myself that I would only be wasting time. </p>
<p>I think there is a huge difference between internal motivation and external motivation. External motivation is what you get when you’re learning at school; internal motivation when you’re doing it on your own. When externally motivated, there is little motivation to do more than is asked.</p>
<p>Well, I guess I’m lucky compared to most of you as I am heading off to college next year (I wish early entrance programs did not have so much stigma attached to them). Well I have to learn from a syllabus in college, yeah, but at least I can skip classes. ;)</p>