Paleo Diet: Raw Paleo Diet and Lifestyle Forum
Raw Paleo Diet Forums => Off Topic => Topic started by: FlyingDutchwoman on January 10, 2013, 03:04:18 am
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Hi guys,
What are your views on an existence devoted exclusively to self-teaching?
All my life I've found school systems depressing and monotonous. They tend to limit one's need to roam freely on an intellectual level and suppress boundless curiosity. Especially in Holland when you're an ambitious straight A student which I am you easily become the object of ridicule and the victim of bullies. Dutch people revere averageness.
My mother will object to this but I'm ditching my plan to study physics (at Cambridge).
My intended career path doesn't require a certificate: I'm envisaging a life as an amateur physicist/inventor and a novelist. If I wanted to pursue a career in the medical profession or law it would be a different story of course.
I've already sent
some novel manuscripts to a publishing house and am eagerly awaiting their response.
Love,
Janice
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I really don't see why you can't study physics at Cambridge and yet still become an inventor/writer in your spare time.
Look, being a writer is a problem. Almost all writers make a pittance of a profit. Most have to have a proper job as well to maintain an average lifestyle(usually involving the academic world for obvious reasons re spare time and holidays). I would suggest signing onto a small publisher as they are doing great, from what I hear, whereas the larger ones are suffering a bit.
Being an inventor is also difficult. If you try to get money to fund your invention, then ,a lot of the time, the business concerned will, in the end, try to grab your invention as well. Getting a patent is also a nightmare with people in some other countries stealing your idea without paying because they know you won't win in the courts - I know of some examples of such.
Overall being a physics lecturer/professor would be a great job. Unlike the soft sciences, hard sciences like physics haven't been as poisoned by Marxists like Derrida yet, so there's more academic freedom. Plus, you'd have all that free time outside classes and school-holidays(minus time needed for marking essays/papers) to pursue your dreams of becoming a novelist/inventor, and having a little extra money from other pursuits would be nice. If you eventually succeeded wildly in the latter options, you could then give up the day job and devote yourself exclusively to writing or making inventions.
Not having a degree means a lot less than it used to. However, some countries like Germany and Austria, for example, still revere degree-owners and you're basically socially dead without one.
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The hard sciences have the least bullshit of any degree program, on average. I agree with self-teaching in most areas except for the hard sciences. If you have the intelligence, I'd recommend at least taking some classes in those areas. You can always become a writer in your spare time.
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"…every man has two educations: that which is given to him, and the other that which he gives himself. Of the two kinds the latter is by far the more desirable. Indeed all that is most worthy in man he must work out and conquer for himself. It is that which constitutes our real and best nourishment. What we are merely taught seldom nourishes the mind like that which we teach ourselves."
- Carter G. Woodson
I have a combination of a moderate amount of formal education and a vast body of auto-didactic knowledge. I think that my auto-didactic qualities were developed during my undergraduate work, which stressed independent learning. Indeed, it is the goal of a good formal education to create a self-directed, lifelong learner. An auto-didact need not be afraid of learning in community when that seems like a good idea.
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You're probably right. I'm being a bit unrealistisc.
Fortunately, the hard sciences still have a good reputation (untainted by marxist cultural relativism) but I just wince at the prospect of subjecting myself to school systems which in general have been pretty unkind to me :'(
O lord!I think I need therapy! l)
Thank you for your thoughts. I appreciate you
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@FlyingDutchwoman,
If you are really good at physics then it would be a good idea to keep going into university, because it will be challenging, you would be surrounded by other young people, and you will set yourself up to get a well paying and interesting job later.
I lived in Cambridge for 18 months as a teenager and though it was a really nice place.
...we all need therapy! O0
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@FlyingDutch women
I tried to reply to you message but you inbox is full
Thought you might want to know ;)