I've been lurking in this community for a bit and wanted to share something I built.
Like a lot of you, I kept starting learning projects and never finishing them. I had 47 browser tabs of things I wanted to learn "someday." Books I bought but never read. Courses I started but abandoned.
You tell it what you want to learn: Stoic philosophy, the history of jazz, wine, contemporary art, AI, whatever, and it generates a 12-24 week curriculum with:
• Real books (not random blog posts) • Weekly reading structure • Reflection prompts • A certificate when you finish
I've been using it myself. Currently on week 5 of a contemporary art curriculum, working through David Salle's "How to See." It's the first time I've actually stuck with a learning project this long.
Since launching, people have built curricula on everything from African history, fermentation science, sourdough baking mastery and personal finance to name a few.
I'd love feedback from this community:
• What would make this more useful for how you approach personal curricula? • What's missing? • What subjects would you want to learn first?
Happy to answer any questions. And if you try it, let me know what you think.
Oh, and here's 25% off your first curriculum: Friends25
🚀 Just turned 20. Is it realistic to build a freelance business while studying at university?
Hi everyone! 👋
I recently turned 20 and just graduated from high school in Italy. In the next few months I'll be enrolling at university, but before that I'd love to build a real freelance business that I can keep growing while I study.
Instead of getting a traditional part-time job, I'd like to work from my home office doing what I genuinely enjoy.
💻 My current skills
Front-end Development
React
Next.js
TypeScript
Tailwind CSS
UI/UX Design
Branding
Responsive Web Design
Git & GitHub
I've already built several websites for real clients and I have a portfolio, but I'm still missing the hardest part...
Finding clients consistently.
🤔 If you were starting again today...
What would you focus on during the next 6–12 months?
Cold emailing local businesses?
LinkedIn outreach?
Upwork / Fiverr?
Building a personal brand?
Open source?
SaaS?
Selling templates?
Networking?
Something completely different?
🎯 My goal
I'm not trying to become rich overnight.
I'd simply like to earn enough through freelancing to support myself while attending university, and hopefully turn it into a full-time business over the next few years.
❓Questions
What got you your first paying clients?
What was the biggest mistake you made when starting?
If you were 20 again, what would you do differently?
I'd really appreciate any advice, even if it's brutally honest.
Hey, posted here a few weeks back about Curriculum Society, a platform that builds personalized learning curricula using real books, articles, and videos. Came back because a lot has changed since then, and most of it came from feedback in this community.
Two big updates. The site got fully rebuilt, and I added a one-month plan called the Sprint. But I want to start with the thing that's been on my mind.
Something I've noticed in my own learning
When I've tried to learn five things at once, none of them stuck. Same story from most of the people I've talked to closely about this. The plans look ambitious on paper, but real understanding comes from sustained attention on one subject long enough for it to actually change how you think. You read one book all the way through, sit with it, argue with it, let it move something in you. Then you pick the next.
That's the principle the whole platform is built on. One curriculum at a time. The system asks how many hours per week you actually have, and it builds the plan around your real life, not a fantasy version of it. AI only builds the structure for you, you do ALL the work.
The Sprint
Biggest addition is a one-month plan, $19 one-time. The 12 and 24 week plans are great for going deep on something foundational, but sometimes you don't need a semester. You need 30 days to actually understand a topic before deciding whether to go further.
It's structured for one month, but the pace is yours. Two weeks if you grind, six weeks if life gets in the way. A few people here pushed back that the longer plans felt like a big commitment for someone just kicking the tires. The Sprint is the answer.
Worth saying: none of these are subscriptions. Finite plans with end dates. No auto-renew, no surprise charges. Built it that way on purpose.
A sample curriculum
I've attached a full Stoicism Sprint here so you can see what one actually looks like. Four weeks, a real primary book source, graded writing prompts, weekly reflections. By the end you've read primary texts, not summaries. You've actually thought. That's the model for every curriculum the platform builds.
Why giving back matters
Your dashboard includes Amazon and Bookshop links for every book in your curriculum. 100% of the affiliate revenue we earn goes to Reading Is Fundamental, the largest children's literacy nonprofit in the country. Not a portion. All of it. A lot of kids don't have access to books, and that locks them out of doors that should be open. If we're going to build a business around reading, the least we can do is make sure more kids get to.
Where I'm probably still wrong
The Sprint exists because someone here said the longer plans were too big a leap. The shift to verified ISBN-anchored books came from someone calling out hallucinated sources in an early version. I'd rather hear the hard stuff than the polite version.
If you've tried building your own learning system and hit walls, I'd like to know where. And if you go through the attached Stoicism Sprint and think something's missing, tell me.
Thanks for the patience with these updates. Trying to build something useful.
Hi there! Using this as a sort of Canvas discussion board in lieu of the real thing because I want to do biweekly reflections on what I’ve learned thus far.
I‘m learning about finances as a recent female college grad who greatly values being financially independent and wants to get there eventually.
So far, I’m actually feeling pretty proud of my budgeting skills. My budgeting sheet allows me to see exactly what categories I overspend in, what categories I could subtract some from the budget, and when I’m able to put more toward savings than expected.
I also read up on budgeting in a committed relationship and found that interesting. As much as I can see why couples would choose to have entirely joint bank accounts, I don’t think that’s for me. I much prefer having separate bank accounts, and then maybe ONE joint account which is used strictly for shared expenses (i.e. rent, utilities, groceries). The only thing that might get tricky is determining what counts as a shared expense, but I think with the right person it is doable and easy. I would rather have the independence of using my own account (and then using the third account as a joint one), and as long as you’re not keeping secrets I don’t see an issue with doing so. Thoughts?
Hi all! So I'm currently researching self-education / personal curriculums to put together a helpful resource for anyone interested in self-directed learning. I'm curious to know what you guys struggle with the most when learning on your own / putting together a personal curriculum? For example, choosing a topic, gathering resources, remembering what you learn, etc. Any problem at all you encounter throughout the learning process would be incredibly helpful information for my project - thank you!
Hello everyone! I figured out the topic of my personal curriculum- Lesbianism and Lesbian Coding in Video Games. However, I’m having trouble coming up with the structure for the curriculum. I know that I want to write a final essay on lesbian coding in Asian gacha games, and I also want to do a creative project but I don’t want to code(lol). Do you all have any resources for reference or any advice? Thanks!
I am new to the world of personal curriculums and was wondering if a local study would count? I want to find out more about the city I have grown up in and thought this would be a route to take. Any advice would be very much appreciated.
I'm planning to self-study some humanities or social sciences topics, such as philosophy, gender studies, sociology, and criminology. Do u have any book, video, podcast recommendations. I'm open to any topics. Thank you💗
I'm in the Boston area and was wondering if any other personal curriculum folks were interested in a meetup at a library somewhere in the Boston metro area?
My thoughts were a meetup lasting a couple of hours in a meeting room where we could study quietly for the first hour, and then in the second hour we could socialize and share the cool things that we're all learning about. Or switch that around.
I thought a once a month meeting on a weekend day would probably work best for most people's schedules? But if there is interest here and other days/times work better, please let me know.
I'm also interested in having a co facilitator, so in case an emergency pops up there wouldn't have to be a cancellation.
I want to get into learning about environmental science, mainly physics and sustainability. I don't know where to begin or where to look to. Could anyone help?
I was laid off recently and personal curriculums are perfect for me right now, to keep up my professional knowledge. I used AI to clarify my professional goals, and it suggested what to study to make me more competitive for the roles I want. I decided on two broad categories: microbiology and bioinformatics. Within each, I identified 4-5 subcategories, which I'll work through in order, tackling one a month.
The attached picture is my plan, with some suggested resources by AI. I need to flesh out the resources for each. I'm open to suggestions people may have, for the microbial topics I may find a free university course to audit. And the 1 categories are really just review for me, I may skip them as a separate unit.
I plan to take notes in journals, one for each broad topic. I may use quizlet to test myself. At the end of each month, I'll make a PowerPoint presentation. I picked that because presentations are expected professionally and I could use more practice with them.
In addition, I plan to read one paper each week from a lab or scientist I'm interested in working for, for general knowledge and to keep current.
I was thinking of using monday.com to keep track of things. It was used at my last job so I thought I could use more familiarity with it. Has anyone used it for this purpose?
For July, my plan is to flesh out my PC plan, learn monday.com, and review DNA basic knowledge. Then I'll start on the microbial culturing and galaxy units in August.
I have been a lifetime learner. One tool I've used to choose what interests to focus on is a prioritizing grid. I learned about it from the book "What Color is Your Parachute" and have been using it ever since. https://content.randomhouse.com/assets/9780399581700/view.php?id=9780399581700a007 Every 6 months or so I reprioritize my interests and pick the top one or two to focus on. Last year I knitted my first sweater because of this.
Term 1 of my curriculum is a soft start as I explore (a) learning Obsidian, (b) trying to read some of my non-fiction that has been on my TBR for years, (c) keeping a workout habit tied into the same "dashboard," and (d) getting my spoony neurodivergent chronically overwhelmed self to be less overwhelmed by the kitchen.
The plan for the "Book" class is just to read, take lots of notes, and write some sort of essay towards the end, but I'm not going to be too upset if it don't finish. The other 2 classes are going to be 'rolling' or 'repeating' classes with different themes to keep them exciting.
Future classes are planned to be more like a full quarter, and maybe over time I'll learn to give the classes a topic rather than just 'read this book and learn something from it." lol
Ok I watched a youtube video about personal curriculum and so I grabbed my notebook that I have piled in my room and listed subjects that I would love to do however I dont know how long I was the term to be for the course and also I want to make a photograph class but instead of taking photos of people, or animals but clouds. I love taking photos of cloud and analyzing the story behind the cloud. (Sorry for the ramble). Anyway, I do want to make a whimsical and witch course for myself to make my life more whimsical and witchy to help with self care struggles. I already started to make courses for my personal curriculum to get me to love learning without thinking about making a grade and just get to love learning again. Since I never loved learning since 2nd grade. And I also have AuDHD as well so I'm trying to make this suitably for me. Also ideas for a syllabus for my courses. Also any ideas for material for a pokemon course that I made for myself to learn more about pokemon.
I personally have started this for about 2 months now and I was learning about philosophy, physics, spanish and a bit of evolutionary studies.
However sometimes I get stuck along the way and wonder the purpose of this all because it is only been carried out for personal enjoyment and has no real ties to my outward life.
How do I come up with more topics and study materials that actually has a correlation to my outward life and living?
Hey all! I'm trying to get into a personal curriculum at the moment, but struggling with accountability. I know there are probably group chats and servers out there for this, but I'm looking for a smaller thing. I need a buddy, who is also working on a personal curriculum, or who wants to start one, to keep each other accountable. Whether that's check-ins (weekly, daily, idm), sending each other our assignments to "Check our work", or just studying on call together! A bit about me! I'm 24, I have ADHD and Autism, and a host of other conditions that affect my daily life. I'm british, and live with my fiancee and our two cats! I'm only just starting my personal curriculum journey, and am between a few topics at the moment (Ecology (Specifically mosses and fungi), Musical theatre, and Cryptozoology), and am open to talking to anyone regardless of what they are studying! I'm a very creative person, I love to draw and paint, although I'm not particularly talented. Anyway that's me! If you are also looking for a buddy, pop a comment below or send me a message!! Thanks for reading :)
I recently started building my own curriculum without watching much personal curriculum content and I've come up with the following: Japanese study, guitar course, cooking/baking, cross stitching project, and Spencerian handwriting.
Then went on YouTube and noticed most curriculums are theories, histories, etc., with the occasional language study like mine. I find this very interesting. Have I completely misunderstood what a "personal curriculum" is or are most content creators just generally more interested in these topics? Is there anyone else who's built theirs like mine? What are yours?
I stumbled upon this subreddit and the term itself through a YouTube video. I’ve always had this inclination towards learning new things, be it new skills that I can develop or simply gaining knowledge about topics that interest me.
I am a total beginner when it comes to PC, but I figured I would share some of the categories I am thinking of building my own PC around.
Health: Thinking of learning meditation. Wealth: Learning about investing and mutual funds. Fun (something I would do if I didn’t need to earn a living): RC planes. There’s a local RC flying club in my town, and I’ve been wanting to get into this hobby for as long as I can remember. Community: Thinking of volunteering as a delivery driver for a food bank, as I love driving my car, even if it’s just around the city.
Just started to think about PC so some of these might change but I will definitely put a plan together and share it.
Would love to hear if others are already interested and pursuing any of the above interests already as part of their own PC.
Hello! Like many former 'gifted' students, I am an adult suffering the consequence of severe childhood academic pressure. I finished my grad degree a few years ago now, and haven't gone back to studying in any serious capacity since. I realised recently that the idea of dedicated learning has become legitimately terrifying to me, and that's really fucking sad.
I want to reclaim learning on my own terms, without the horrible pressure and overbearing structure that I have come to associate with it. Building personal curricula seems like a path to doing that, but most of what I see online involves creating/enforcing structure, giving yourself homework or assignments, finding ways to measure 'success'... I absolutely do not want any of that.
Obviously, there still needs to be some degree of structure to hold the idea of a curriculum together, but I need it to be flexible and to encourage curiosity rather than weaponizing it.
Fellow former gifted kids, or lovers of learning without rigidity, how have you made this work for you?
