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Permalink Reply by Michael Smith on July 15, 2012 at 5:19am

I firmly believe for personal growth you can gain more from the experience and knowledge that you acquire yourself then from official sources. That being said it in no way indicates you will gain more. It is easy to sidetrack yourself. College does not only offer knowledge but it also offers a structure that can ... further internalize successful methods of project management and expose you to ideas you may not find anywhere else. Some tasks and or knowledge is extremely difficult to obtain if you are not interested or worse hate the subject; however, a goal dictated by someone else can push you to develop these nasty skills. Finances are a factor but only with one question. Can you afford it or not? When it's all said and done having a higher degree will yield more money than not having one. A degree will also land you much better jobs that would otherwise be unobtainable. You don't have to put these two paths against each other either, if cooking is your passion you will find yourself doing it regardless of pursuing a degree or not. These two paths run parallel to each other for much of the journey. Personally I hate what colleges charge for earning a piece of paper that says you know something. But if you have the ability I say get that damn piece of paper. For your experimenting year I would choose subjects that you will later encounter in college. There also are a number of websites popping up that offer free online classes and even courses on all kinds of topics. 
Coursera, edx, Khan Academy, Skillshare, General Assembly, and Lynda have alot to offer, I have only used khan academy myself. Goodluck.

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Permalink Reply by Bart on July 15, 2012 at 5:55am

thx for the reply, i will look into those sites soon.

As for now i chose that i would set two goals for this week, and at the end of the week i will look back at those goals and see how it went. i thought i should try having one math-goal and one work related goal.

The math goal is to do complete a chapter in a school book i bought earlier. And the work-related goal is too go deeper into egg.

I made the goals kind of easy this first week, so i can focus more on how i`m learning and not be discouraged by taking on too much at the time.

Learning more about eggs is obviously very helpful because of my profession, but i know math is very important if i ever wish to become head-chef or something.

But still, i`m doing this more because i`m curious to see how well i can learn on my own than trying to become better at my job.

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Davies on July 26, 2012 at 12:26am

I've been considering this for a long time, and it's right up my ally since I was homeschooled all my life. I started learning about computers this way as well. I've had quite a bit of luck with programming, etc using self study.

The only downside to self education in the place of a formal, institutionalized one is that it's tempting to only study things that interest you. It feels bad at the time, but university forces you to have a well rounded education by making you study things that you wouldn't normally seek out on your own.

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Permalink Reply by Bart on August 2, 2012 at 2:07pm

that`s a good point. Up to now i`ve ONLY been reading about things i find interesting.

I was thinking about setting a goal for more than a week soon. Now i`ve only put up some goals for one week at a time. To have some sort of main goal, and then set weekly goals as a way to achieve this main goal. Then i would probably have to crawl my way through stuff i hate or atleast feel no special interest about.

Could also be nice to get some focus instead of flying around the internet reading about quantum mechanics one minute and economics the next.

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