The Personal Curriculum Movement

It might sound strange, but I was one of those people that liked school. Sure, I didn’t like the stress of exams or extra late night studying sessions, but I fell in love with the act of learning. If I could take college courses for the rest of my life without the added struggle of paying for them, I certainly would.

So, when I learned about a trend that was centered around learning, I immediately jumped onboard.

Whilst scrolling on TikTok one day, I stumbled upon the idea of the personal curriculum. At first, I had no idea what it was, but hidden behind an array of aestheticized fast-moving clips, I was able to grasp the concept.

A personal curriculum, at its core, is what you make of it. The broad strokes are formulating a personalized plan in order to learn more about a specific topic or interest. It can be anything from the traditional structure of a college schedule with classes built around a syllabus, or something looser and focused on everyday activities like gardening. The goal is to simply learn.

The best part is that it’s tailored to your style of learning. Say you do best with reading. You can curate a list of books on the topic you’re studying, free articles online, and even transcripts of YouTube videos.

I know what you must be thinking: how can I even get started? For the longest time I was plagued with the same question. There were so many things I wanted to learn from biology to ancient history to how to outline a novel. It was overwhelming! It took some time to let that stress disappear. In the meantime, I consumed as much content about personal curriculums as I could.

I saw how others formulated their schedules – some on a monthly basis, others on a trimester system. I found online resources like Khan Academy and free courses from some of the top universities in the US. There were plenty of reading lists on Tumblr and Pinterest as well.

Now, the biggest part was not overwhelming myself. Even though I had a more or less free summer going into my first year of law school, I knew that if I jumped in as if I was taking another semester of undergrad that I would lose steam rather quickly. Therefore, I started with some basic topics. One thing I wanted to accomplish was to regain my math and biology literacy. I was one of those kids that took loads of AP classes in high school, but after three years of only taking humanities courses, my STEM knowledge suffered. Rather than completely forget even basic algebra, I started with something simple. Those Khan Academy courses? They’re free. There’s plenty of videos with sample problems, hints and tips on how to solve them, and quizzes to test your knowledge. With these courses, I’ve been able to regain skills I feared I would lose forever.

There are other sites like Busuu that have helped me practice my Spanish skills too. Going from an environment where I was speaking Spanish nearly everyday in class, to barely speaking the language in three years, I was in desperate need of a brush up. The site allows you to connect with native speakers so your grammar can be corrected by someone that actually knows what they’re talking about.

Although I’ve talked a lot about online resources, I can’t forget our analogue options – many of which come from one of my favorite places in the world: the public library.

Libraries have a multitude of resources that people may forget about. Sure, their books hold a whole host of knowledge but libraries also have access to things like newspapers, museum passes, and things such as a “library of things”. These collections can allow you to try out a new hobby or even look to the stars with a telescope without having to pay a hefty price. This allows learning to be accessible to a wide range of individuals.

With the US facing a literacy crisis and people turning towards screens more than each other, it’s more important now than ever to dive into learning. You don’t need to start hard – jumping straight into calculus on your own might be a challenge, you just need to find what gets you excited to learn and expand from there. I for one am excited to get through my seasonal curriculum so I can learn even more about the world around me.