Making the most out of university

[macg]

What year? I heard him in 84-85 and he was completely acid fried. I remember he said question authority, got confused and I believe he sat down on the floor at one point.

It was 1992. He was a bit scattered in the lecture, and yeah, wandered off point a bunch, but overall it was still great. Hanging out with just him and a few others after the event was extraordinary. Just a different mind than others, so far from "normal" ... But let's be clear - he was indeed "acid fried" lol

Another interesting person (same thing - came for a lecture, hung out a bit after) was G Gordon Liddy, the "mastermind of Watergate". I read his book "Will" at a young age (I was obsessed with Watergate), very interesting read. I wouldn't put him in the "genius" category, but he had a particular mindset, particular way of thinking - many would say/do say deranged or psychotic lol. Definitely interesting ... and if I remember correctly, he & Leary had a series of "debates" on college campuses in the 1980s. That had to be cool, the former FBI agent/Nixon hatchet man against the "most dangerous man in America" (according to Nixon)

Sorry, don't want to hijack the thread - back to the OP, definitely take advantage of whoever teaches or visits while you are there! As described here, it can lead to interesting learning opportunities!

[Henry]

My point about not getting involved in activism unless there was a hot chick involved was based on a Louis Farrakhan appearance. Thinking about it now, I realized how cancel culture evolved. Back in the day Louis was allowed to speak, but a group of us protested outside. Now he wouldn't have been booked and I doubt the likes of a G Gordon Liddy would either. In retrospect, I should have taken the opportunity to listen to Farrakhan, to see him for myself. But I did get to second. So is there that.

[7Wannabe5]

I would also note that your university experience may depend a lot on where you choose to live. For example, a dorm by the engineering college (my first two years)is going to have a very different vibe than a semi-vegetarian co-op (my next two years)near the liberal arts buildings or married/family student housing near the teaching college (my last year)or frat/sorority scene (which I mostly avoided, but occasionally socialized with.) I've been trying to trace back my adoption of frugality through books I have read, and a couple that I picked up off the shelves of the semi-vegetarian co-op were definitely influential. The first was "Homesteading in the City: A Survival Manual for Young People Living in Town or Off Campus." and the other was a utopian novel which I haven't yet been able to dredge up from memory.

Since my parents moved to a major University town from the exurbs (affluent semi-rural suburbia) when I was 19, and I continued to either work or live there for much of my adult life, I would also note that simply living in a University town or neighborhood as a "townie" can provide many of the same cultural advantages as enrolling as a student for much less cash outlay.

[ffj]

@macg

You got me thinking about anybody notable I was able to see while in school. I did see Liddy and Abbie Hoffman "debate" once which was a riot with Hoffman killing himself not long after, maybe a year? Story Musgrave was another notable speaker who I got to meet and ask a question but he was so short with me that I took his signed photo and threw it in the trash. He did some impressive stuff though.

I also got to meet one of my favorite Kentucky authors, James Still, before he died. I just stood there like an idiot not knowing what to say which I regret because I had so much respect for his talent.

@OP

You'll never be around this many young, carefree people again. You won't know what you had until you leave and figure out the working world sucks, surrounded by not carefree people. Bitter, backstabbing, angry, stressed people trying to survive. Oh, you've got a big test in calculus coming up? Your future co-worker is wound up so tight just looking at your fresh, optimistic face makes him want to beat your ass.

Point is, enjoy those years to the fullest because you will never experience that environment to that level again. Instead of striving for straight A's, settle for B's and take that extra time not studying and live it up with the people around you. You can still be strategic but don't sacrifice opportunities you will never see again.

[suomalainen]

Oh, you've got a big test in calculus coming up? Your future co-worker is wound up so tight just looking at your fresh, optimistic face makes him want to beat your ass.

[jacob]

Presuming the particular university has not been decided yet, note that different universities may have different pedagogical strategies. Some prioritize lectures and the student's ability to recite contents of the lecture at oral exams. Some prioritize solving (closed-end) textbook problems and prioritize the ability to do that. Some prioritize (somewhat open-ended) project-based learning and/or the ability to work in a team. This may vary from school to school and from country to country.

The different skill sets obtained are useful in different future roles. They do to a large degree influence or at least select for how the graduates are thinking. This is why the particular choice of school matters. Both in terms of choosing a compatible one but also in terms of which ones employers prefer to hire from for a given job.

[okumurahata]

The experience I valued the most is studying abroad at college. I learned that German buses are scheduled to the minute, and they arrive on time, for example, at 16:32 with a variance of 36 s². Who on earth schedules buses with that precision? Germans. Living in the campus residence, you realize that you have limited funds, but you study in the morning and party at night. Nothing more to worry about. Undergraduate life is the best, even if the myth of having sex with multiple partners doesn’t always hold true. When you study, you also realize how some people have the ability to negotiate grades with the teacher. These are the individuals who often receive bonuses later in life. Being a great student doesn’t necessarily translate to being a successful worker. If I went back to university, I would enjoy it more rather than studying excessively. I’d also make sure to figure things out on my own instead of relying on classes or asking the teacher. The ability to think clearly is something that nobody can see, but people can notice.

[Henry]

Who on earth schedules buses with that precision? Germans.

They're good with trains as well. But that's a whole other story.

[macg]

@macg

You got me thinking about anybody notable I was able to see while in school. I did see Liddy and Abbie Hoffman "debate" once which was a riot with Hoffman killing himself not long after, maybe a year? Story Musgrave was another notable speaker who I got to meet and ask a question but he was so short with me that I took his signed photo and threw it in the trash. He did some impressive stuff though.

I also got to meet one of my favorite Kentucky authors, James Still, before he died. I just stood there like an idiot not knowing what to say which I regret because I had so much respect for his talent.

We could probably have an interesting stand-alone thread about "notable" meets lol.

I was quite lucky, or perhaps as Jacob mentions, I chose well - probably a combination of both lol. The school I was in had many events, many lectures, many huge student discounts to various things throughout the city (NYC). Exposed me to a lot at a relatively young age. And to @Henry's point, some of that was to people like Liddy, ultimately someone I personally would never follow / agree with - but that doesn't take away from the fact he was interesting to hear and meet. Perhaps because of the differences, who knows.

Since my parents moved to a major University town from the exurbs (affluent semi-rural suburbia) when I was 19, and I continued to either work or live there for much of my adult life, I would also note that simply living in a University town or neighborhood as a "townie" can provide many of the same cultural advantages as enrolling as a student for much less cash outlay.

This is a great point as well. I likely wouldn't pay for college if I was growing up nowadays, I'd only go if I had scholarships. It was too expensive 30 years ago, it's just crazy now lol (At least in the US)

[zbigi]

I learned that German buses are scheduled to the minute, and they arrive on time, for example, at 16:32 with a variance of 36 s².

Poland also schedules city busses to the minute - otherwise, how could you depend on them to get you to your job or a train station on time? I was actually surprised that London does not do it, but it makes perfect sense in a city with plenty of busses and high levels of congestion - on popular lines, you can pretty much assume that some bus will always come within the next 5-10 minutes.

[mathiverse]

In many places in the US, you can't depend on the buses to get you anywhere on time, so the way to assure you aren't late is to take an early bus compared to the one needed to arrive on time, so if it's late (or early!) and you miss it, you still have at least one fallback bus scheduled to pick you up early enough to arrive on time.

Alternatively, only take the bus if your schedule is flexible and you have no arrival deadline, so it doesn't matter how early or late the bus is.

Alternatively, sometimes it is possible to only take the bus opportunistically if it passes you on the walk to your destination rather than planning for the bus to take you the entire way.

[7Wannabe5]

One of my fondest memories took place while my first husband and I were both quite young broke-ass non-car-owning college students, and he was also working part-time, and we sometimes had to meet at a bus stop to hand off our infant son. The driver and the other people riding on the bus were always so amused to see me step up next to the driver, pass my husband the baby, and then step back off waving good-bye. Frugal note would be that you never have to pay extra fare when just transferring a baby.

[okumurahata]

Barcelona is like London in that regard; buses are scheduled at intervals (e.g. every 10 minutes), rather than using an exact time. We also have a bus app that makes real-time arrival estimations (the bus will arrive in n minutes). Nothing new here; I believe that most modern big cities have it too. On the extreme, in Bangkok, for example, public transportation is so unreliable that they also have an app to see the buses in real-time (ala Uber), but time predictions are a mistery. If standard deviation is too large, I believe that it doesn’t make sense to give estimated times.

Anyway, if population density grows with time, the chaos is guaranteed. At some point, the city reaches a saturation point where everything collapses. A sufficient reason to choose a bicycle friendly city to study. If I went back to university, I would have chosen some subjects about the topic… Public transportation and ITS are interesting.

[Western Red Cedar]

@okumurahata - the gold standard for public transit is to have scheduled arrivals for buses or trains every 10 minutes (or less). Once you get to the 10 minute mark, people don't need to worry about a specific time and can just plan on showing up and catching the next bus/train. Cities generally need fairly high densities to make this realistic and financially feasible. Fixed rail is much more expensive than a bus system.

Real time data on arrivals is also very helpful. Transit systems can use some engineering or design principles to manage the chaos of high density, such as fixed rail subway/train/metro, and priority lanes for buses during rush hour. The general idea is to make public transit more appealing for commuters and general riders than driving alone.

There is quite a bit of behavioral psychology and design wrapped into transit planning. Something as simple as the design and cartographic features of the map can have a pretty dramatic impact on ridership.

I was actually in Bangkok earlier this week and the public bus from the airport to downtown worked well for us in rush hour traffic. DW and I made use of the river taxi (about .40 cents per ride) on a few occasions and it was a lovely way to get around. It is regularly used by locals to get around the city and was the historic transit mode in Bangkok.

[Western Red Cedar]

@op - One of the things I did that I really enjoyed while at uni was taking extra classes some quarters in random areas of interest. Things are likely different in the UK, but in the states we were allowed to take a certain number of credit hours without paying extra tuition. The standard load was 15-17 credits per quarter, but we could take up to 21 at no extra cost. After my first year I took an extra class most quarters in a field completely unrelated to my major. A few of my favorites were 19th Century European Art History, Social Psychology through Film, Medieval Literature, and a Spike Lee film class. It was definitely extra work, but I always excelled in these classes because I was taking them by choice. It also exposed me to some new people outside of my major. This might not work well for everyone, but it enriched my experience.

I did something similar in graduate school as well which allowed me to finish a quarter earlier and save a few thousand dollars on tuition. In the states, I could drop a class within the first few weeks if you felt like the course load was too much or I didn't enjoy the instructor.

One thing I wish I did more of was take advantage of some of the university amenities such as the gym/fitness center, cheap sailboat and kayak rentals, cheap courses on climbing or mountaineering, etc...

[shelob]

Thank you so much everyone. I didn’t expect this many responses. I’ll try to think about/respond to as much as I can. This got way longer and way more introspective than I thought it would, I was expecting something more like “take this elective not that”.

But first, thanks to @chenda for making me laugh, I needed it!

I have nothing really to add other than to reiterate all of Henry's points. And don't try and have sex in the library. No one wants to see that when looking for the Kelly's directories.

But, but! It’s on the bucket list!

Thinking about the responses made some things fall into place for me. I started having anxiety issues early last year, which got progressively worse until by November it was interfering massively with my life. That’s also when it started to develop metastases like insomnia. While I was typing out this post, I realised this must have been developing for much longer than I’d thought, because a lot of my actions throughout the last ~3 years (I’m 21) make the most sense if I assume the motive was fear.

And don't ever watch Brideshead Revisited, it will leave you nostalgic for a world you never knew.

I have the book, but haven’t opened it yet It’s considered a must-read here though.

How did you get a full scholarship? Scholarships weren't even a thing in my day. My memories of undergraduate life were dull and depressing, I didn't even bother to attend my graduation.

The honest answer to that is that there was a lot of random chance + serendipity involved. Having read this forum also helped, because at several points in both interview processes (scholarship, then uni) I reframed interview questions with the tools of systems thinking, and it must have worked. It’s probably also relevant that I have the right combination of national and international academic competitions on my CV.
But really, there was a lot of luck. In early 2022, I applied for a career counselling, and told that counsellor that I’d like to study in the US/UK, but couldn’t afford international/Brexit fees. He said to try scholarships. I came across one I was eligible for, and said “this is not going to work but I’ll regret it for the rest of my life if I don’t try” and it just never went wrong. There are dozens of points where statistically it should have. I did one of my video interviews in the middle of the night, because I was on deployment and it was the only time my ship’s internet connection was good enough for video. I was so sleep-deprived from sea watch that I got the time zone wrong, wondered why no one showed up, went to sleep, then jolted awake with the realisation that I got the time zone wrong, sprinted back, and was only one minute late. For another of the remote tests, both the ship’s internet and my hotspot failed, but a comrade very kindly lent me her phone for several hours. Without her it would have failed there. Then the First Officer signed my request for the German Navy to fly me home to take the in-person entrance exam. There are several more instances like that, but this is probably already a longer response than you were looking for. Also, my sister saved my ass several times, by helping me phrase emails and doing practice interviews and so on.

I’ve been trying to draw lessons from this, and what I came up with was “if you want fortune to act in your favour, you have to give her opportunities to do it”.

It might also be a positive externality of being convinced that you’ll be a complete failure at life unless you always give 100% everywhere, because I would not have tried otherwise. This is also how I’ve tried to manage my anxiety in general, by allowing it to draw my attention to issues I might otherwise ignore, trying to turn them into actionable problems, then addressing them constructively. It’s just, it’s increasingly obvious that I take this way farther than could possibly be healthy.

I'd have sought mental health counseling.

I was approved by the NHS for weekly high-intensity cognitive-behavioural therapy btw (apparently I meet the criteria for being a severe case : lol : ) and had my second session on Friday.
One of my biggest fears is not making use of opportunities, realising that there’s something I should have done but didn’t. Regret in general. This explains why I’m trying to do so many things at once, I think one of them will be The One Thing That Changes My Life, or where I Meet My True Friends or something like that, and that’s not how it works. This is probably also why I signed up for so much stuff. I feel like I’m standing atop a house of cards that will collapse any minute, but if I never miss a single opportunity I might find out how to postpone it. I’m taking additional maths/econ classes (due to the well-founded fear that I’ve forgotten most high school maths), am doing 2.5 sports competitively (minor league, not varsity… yet) and also do stuff meant to increase social skills, like choir, impro, Nightline,… An outside observer might conclude that I’m trying to self-sabotage by getting to burnout as fast as I can

Btw! I’ve asked the OP question to lots of people. Maybe a future reader of this thread will find this useful:

[same career advisor who told me to apply for the scholarship]
- become a good conversationalist, to learn from peers, TAs, profs, etc
- learn from impressive people
- don’t get stuck in one echo chamber or another
- don’t get sucked into woke activism
- try to have one highly legible accomplishment (rather than lots of small things). If this doesn’t work, grades become more important

[various other people]
- focus on learning, acceptable grades will follow
- don’t let yourself get talked over in tutorials etc by people who have a more aggressive conversation style than you
- it’s your degree and NOT about other people’s expectations
- employers in the UK care more about uni name + final grade, less about individual modules (but they may be relevant for Master’s)
- marathon not a sprint
- don’t fail out >> perfect grades
- avoid sleep deprivation
- have fun
- learn to not be anxiety-driven

About majors, studying abroad,…: Changing courses or taking courses not on the official course list is generally not possible, unless you want to drop out and apply again for a different course. There are extracurricular opportunities for absolutely everything though. PPE also has a pretty broad range of electives, and I plan to take Quantitative Economics next year for statistical literacy, etc.

I intend to start learning Mandarin next academic year, with the current plan being to do a Master’s in China or Taiwan, or finding an alternative way of spending at least six months there, maybe through Teaching English as a Foreign Language/TEFL.

What does a good life look like to you, after university?

Maximizing income might look different than exploring Europe or building deep friendships or a establishing a powerful network or...

I'd start there and work backwards. If you don't know, it's a good place to start asking that question.

YES! look at it backwards. Now.

Regarding why I originally made the decision to come here, it has to do with the many things I’d be interested in that the credential is useful for, but also with how there are so many things I want to learn and it was the logical step to take. I’m currently taking a course in R, for example, but also went to a talk about migration movements in classical period Greece recently, and am learning Spanish and Latin.

I also can’t deny being motivated by the substantial wage premium/increased opportunities for people from my socioeconomic class of origin (this basically disappears in statistics for people with >= upper middle class backgrounds, or who attend non-elite unis, but I’m making the informed choice that I’m in a demographic where it is beneficial.)

Plus, from a general strategy point of view: it’s probably prudent to first aim for success at conventional things/have legible accomplishments, and then do more “alternative” things, because that makes it clear to other people it’s a * choice *. The failure mode of this is keeping all your aims/goals/plans legible to the average person, but that’s not what I mean. I don’t think opting out of all social signalling games is a good idea unless you’re already FI/have some very good reason/…


...I realise that this is not the question you two were asking, and I have trouble giving a coherent response to what you were in fact asking.

I think I want to do intellectual work, e.g. I’ve been working for years on squaring Kant’s theory of ethics with evolutionary psychology, and now I’ve finally described the problem clearly. I also want to figure out what the heck is going on in China politically/economically. Plus some more projects in that vein that I think about every day. If I were forced at gunpoint right now to commit to a career path I’d say I want to work in global priorities. My current very naive plan is to ideally figure out how I can get think tanks and the like to pay me for doing that while I continue to invest the difference between my spending and income. The credential seems very useful for that.

One thing I’ve been using as my overarching plan for years (and also talked about during the application process) is that I want to build the best mental world map I can (see also: global priorities) and I’m collecting puzzle pieces one at a time. This is part of why I stayed in the military longer than I planned and why I want to go to Asia. I’m still not very satisfied with this response to your question though.

This seems to tie in well with what multiple people have said about staying broad/developing transferable skills/working on projects that result in useful skills.
I’m already learning statistics/R, writing (I have lots of writing assignments), am involved at the organising level with several societies, and with stuff that develops social skills. What are useful and/or transferable skills I should also aim for?


Re: great professors/guest lecturers: I have lots of opportunities for that, but I’ve barely taken advantage of it. I’m updating towards doing that more, and take more advantage of the fact that the environment makes it easy to get exposed to very different people and ideas.

If you want to make the most out of university, it's best to know what you want. At least in my time (1994 Denmark) the majority just went because it's what one did if one had the required GPA from HS. I agree with @sou that people go for three reasons, namely either to learn, to start a career, or for the experience (=> mostly "social life").

Looking back, it was clear which path people were on even if they didn't realize it at the time. Also these paths really did out up with different outcomes. None of them bad, just different. Ultimately, I think people just became what they innately were. What's unique about university is that it allows you to be what/who you really are or want to be. Not many places allows this.

To make it interesting, Bartle's taxonomy describes it well.

The Explorers were there to learn. They studied whatever was interesting them. Changing major. Had hobbies. Their plans after graduation was in effect an afterthought. Most ended up in teaching or as specialists.

The Achievers were there to check off the degree box in order to start a career. They finished everything on time. Studied whatever had the highest expected GPA per effort. Quickly forgot everything they learned and went on to become responsible middle managers in various corporations and businesses.

The Socializers were there to meet new people and "socialize" with them. They went over time, in several cases years, eventually studying whatever would result in a pity-pass. Went on to sales jobs. By far had the best stories and still maintains the best contacts with the crowd.

Frankly, I don't think university is all that different from HS except you now have adult rights and no adult supervision + the average IQ has increased by 10-20 points.

In conclusion, it's not like people are 100% one and 0% the others. There's a distribution. I was 80% Explorer and 20% Socializer. In retrospect, it would have been helpful to have the Achiever component in there even if just being aware of it. For me, that stage of personal development came later in grad school and only lasted a brief while.

I’m at least 50% explorer, with a healthy dose of achiever, and most definitely do not want to end up as a teacher or specialist.

I would also note that your university experience may depend a lot on where you choose to live.

I’m definitely noticing that too! So far I like the small university town much better than the other cities I’ve lived in. Right now I live in the official accommodation (though by virtue of being >=21 I ended up in the one for mature students, which in retrospect is very fortunate) but I’ll have to “live out” next year. Due to getting diagnosed with celiac disease ~5 months ago, I’m now looking for other celiac/gluten-free people to get a house share with. Kitchens shared with people who eat gluten are now high up in my list of nightmares I’m 50% optimistic about this, but very open to suggestions!

Presuming the particular university has not been decided yet, note that different universities may have different pedagogical strategies. Some prioritize lectures and the student's ability to recite contents of the lecture at oral exams. Some prioritize solving (closed-end) textbook problems and prioritize the ability to do that. Some prioritize (somewhat open-ended) project-based learning and/or the ability to work in a team. This may vary from school to school and from country to country.

The different skill sets obtained are useful in different future roles. They do to a large degree influence or at least select for how the graduates are thinking. This is why the particular choice of school matters. Both in terms of choosing a compatible one but also in terms of which ones employers prefer to hire from for a given job.

I started my degree last fall, but will keep this in mind if I end up doing further study. I think my uni is a mix between these, or it depends on the particular prof/elective? Not very sure though.
Also, I’m open to discussing uni-specific stuff via DM or email if anyone’s interested in that, I’d just prefer to not post my location for the next three years where any random person can read it

Thanks again everyone, this was very helpful!!

[Jean]

I consider my degree to have been mostly a complete waste of time. So here is what no to do.
I choosed my degree because i wanted it to lead to a real job, so i picked engineering, because i saw everything else as eitheir parasiting, not difficult enough, or pure entertainment.
I only learned after my graduation that getting good grade from a good school wasn't enough to get an engineering job. I'm still angry about it 13 years after graduating, to the point i need to rant on your topic.
So don't do that, if you have any expectation gor your future, get counseeling about it, and get several opinions, because many counseelors are incompetent.
What i wish i did was study music, so that i would at least know why i can't make money, But i wouldn't have an excuse anymore for my music to sound bad, so maybe i picked the right choice.

[Sclass]

Yeah me too. It’s really hard to admit after sacrificing to get there. Sacrificing to finish. And then finding out the real world wanted something I could learn to do by reading an instruction manual or trade magazine. Which I did after graduation to become an “industry expert”.

Nobody I graduated with talks about this. Maybe they want to keep up the illusion of competence.

Employers kind of assumed I picked up all my chops in school as I worked through my career. I wasn’t about to admit to my management I was self taught. I missed all the important classes while in school because I simply didn’t know what the world would want once I left school. I filled in the holes myself.

I often wonder if what would have happened if I just refused my parents’ big plan to go to college and go to work. What made the most money for me was something I already had deep down inside. Hustle. College and professional life almost destroyed it.

[Scott 2]

it’s probably prudent to first aim for success at conventional things/have legible accomplishments, and then do more “alternative” things, because that makes it clear to other people it’s a * choice *.

How did you decided proving this is important? That may speak to what you value.

There's not one right answer. In my own case - success is a life where one's authentic self is cherished. Profession is a minor part of the criteria.

Even the most considered answer will change over time.

I think I want to do intellectual work,
...
I’m at least 50% explorer, with a healthy dose of achiever, and most definitely do not want to end up as a teacher or specialist.

My question is very simple. Each day, you'll do some stuff. What do you want on the list? How might that change in 10 years, 20, 50, etc.

Don't think only about the what. But also the how. Do you want to fly every week or work in the same office for 10 years? Talk to 50 people each day or 5 in a month?

No need for creativity. Shop other people's lives. Barista or rock star? Librarian or electrician? University connections let you speak with those people. Check your assumptions. Work towards what appeals.

I hate defining people by profession, but it's an efficient search tool, Take Actuary as an example:

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/math/actuaries.htm#tab-2

An actuary takes 8 professional exams, most of them post university. They effectively commit to a self-directed masters degree in statistics. Is that exciting or horrifying?

To quote a great 20th century philosopher:

Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but nobody wants to lift no heavy-ass weights.

How broadly constrains the option set, easing your search. Your own path will be special, but it's probably not unique.


Re: scholarship - your description reveals someone humble, hard working and capable. I'm curious to see where you take it.

[7Wannabe5]

An actuary takes 8 professional exams, most of them post university. They effectively commit to a self-directed masters degree in statistics. Is that exciting or horrifying?

I found the prospect of the actuarial exams kind of interesting/appropriately challenging. I passed the first two exams at the same sitting with a top score on the Math through Calculus one. Studying for the exams was a good balance for me at the time, because my other major activity was caring for my infant son. What put me off from actually becoming an actuary (besides the fact that I was already knocked up again with my daughter at the time I was interviewing and my ex in the role of house-husband was laughable) was the work environments. The prospect of my soul dying in a cubicle on the 22nd floor of the headquarters building of a major insurer seemed likely.

So, why am I now engaged in studying in an online program towards M.S. in IT/Data Science? Can't say for sure, but I think it has something to do with a tendency towards punishing myself with practicality whenever one of my more irrationally optimistic cuckoo-bananas projects goes bust or impulsive behavior gets me in a bit of a jam. Due to my cultural upbringing, the fact that I had to resort to accepting Medicaid in order to quite literally save my ass when I was suddenly struck down with Crohn's disease required penance of some Puritanical form.

OTOH, when I was making my living as a self-employed rare book dealer, I was as one with my profession. My business dying was like being widowed after a very good marriage. So, if I had to do it again, I would probably choose to self-educate myself in a University town setting or similar, while also starting my own lifestyle business(es.) In the "Art of Non-Conformity", Chris Guilebeau lists a number of relatively less expensive activities one could engage in independently that would equate to getting a graduate degree. My only caveat would be that sometimes it is good to be pushed to take some required courses outside of your preferences/talents.