When Should A Student Take On The Readings For The Non-Course?

Let's begin this post with a reminder of the philosophy that informs both the Non-Course and the "Meal Plan Readings" that were featured in the prior posts and that likely precede starting with the Non-Course.  Everything here is meant as suggestions only.  The student drives the bus!  This means that the student can do whatever the students wants, whether that is to start with the Non-Course straight away or stick with recreational reading and never start into the Non-Course. Further, even when some transition is contemplated, it can be partial rather than all or nothing and the pace of transition is entirely up to the student.  So in what follows I'm going to use qualitative variables rather than temporal variables to discuss the transition issue. 

One thing to observe, there is only one of the Non-Course readings that is fiction.  The rest are non-fiction.  Further, the approximate order in which they should be read, which does not coincide with how they are listed is to read several essays first, followed by a couple of comparatively easy to read books.  So one should take note about how the student is doing with the pieces given in the Salads post.  If you feel comfortable that you can make good meaning of those pieces, you are ready skill-wise.  If you are struggling with those pieces, maybe you should focus on raising your skill level first.  Coaching from me is available for that, if you want.

Next, assuming you are ready skill-wise, you might project forward by asking the question: what if I made good progress on self-teaching and learning to learn?  What would I do with that knowledge?  Is there any downside for me to being so aware?  If you think of this as to how it relates to the courses you will be taking thereafter, what will happen to how you go about those courses if you find out that your prior approach is inconsistent with self-teaching.  (I think such a discovery is likely, but not certain.)  Now, let's add to this that self-teaching will feel rewarding to you, because you are really learning, but it will be time consuming, and that surely will be part of the issue.  Here are some possible ways to manage this new perception:

• Continue with the approach in classes that you had been using previously and indeed, suspend trying out self-teaching till after you graduate, for fear that you'll mess up your GPA or otherwise create some unintended consequence. 
• Continue with the approach in classes that you had been using previously.  Start in on the self-teaching but restrict it to things you learn outside of formal coursework. 
• Decide on one or two "favorites" among your classes and do self-teaching there. In your other classes keep with what you were doing before. 
• Try to do self-teaching in all your classes.  Capture the additional time you need by doing less in the non-course arena.  (Please don't try to capture the time by sleeping less.  That surely will be self-defeating.) 

Regardless of which of these you opt for, you may experience some angst in looking back at what you had done in college.  In some sense, that angst has been there all the time, but it may have been hidden.  This might very well bring it to the surface.  

Recognizing that such projection is far from perfect, it does give you an alternative to compare with sticking with the Meal Plan Readings.   I want to assert that with life decisions of this sort, there are no right answers.  But let's make one more point before we close.  If you expect to use self-teaching in an outside the class setting, you'll need some project to work on to give it a try.  Do you have such a project in mind?  That's got to be part of the decision process.