Creative Studies

My post graduate work (after I graduated from High School) wasn't what I'd imagined. I was so excited to choose my own major and just take the classes that interested me. Bag geology, good-bye geometry, sayonara physics, and hello creative writing! The summer before I started college I practically memorized the class descriptions in the catalog I had. I wanted to take poetry and literature and psychology...and major in German. I could hardly wait to select my subjects and jump around to learn everything I wanted to learn. I was very disappointed to find there was a structured curriculum, and required subjects that had nothing to do with my interests. Even my chosen major didn't allow for exploration. It was all outlined, and didn't include most of the classes that sounded fascinating to me. (Who gets to take those classes, anyway?)

I bucked the system, and against my counselor's advice, skipped a lot of courses outlined for freshmen, and signed up for classes that called out to me. From a diploma point of view it was a mistake. I dropped out after my sophomore year, and if I ever went back to finish, I would have to start all over with basic requirements; my 2 years really wouldn't count for anything. Except I don't regret the eclectic choices I made.

The internet has finally given me a chance to create my own curriculum. I spend hours studying and looking up very random topics. It's a private library for me. Recently I heard someone say they thought blogging was a total waste of time. Blogging has taught me more than many creative writing classes I've taken! Scholars study anthropology, current events, geography, psychology, child development and literature, and nobody questions the value of that. I have explored a lot of these very topics in the blogs I read. It's just learning in a different format.

When historians research, first person accounts and original sources are the prize! It would be so great to read what my mom experienced during the depression, or have a journal of my grandpa's journey from Sweden to America at age 17. Pioneer diaries, Civil War letters, Pearl Harbor headlines...these are turned into history books and documentaries. Won't blogs contribute, too? Blogs are archives of the future. Philosophy is the study of what people thought and wrote down. The Bible is a collection of histories and spiritual experiences, that people wrote down. I realize that not all blogs are of this quality, but I feel that record keeping is NOT a waste of time.

I don't have a diploma, but I feel that I have an education. Life has been my university and my major is Creative Learning.

So how do you feel about blogging? Leave a comment!

I took a survey that had interesting questions about this. Here's the address if you want to take it.
(The survey was at http://www.whydoyoublog.com/ )