Making your own education

It has now gotten to that point where I really need to figure out what comes next in terms of education. It's been a little bit of a struggle lately, for a number of reasons. I grew up always believing that the next logical step was graduate school. Granted, I didn't start really thinking about it until high school, but you get my drift. 

My parents never told me I had to go to grad school, my father didn't and my mom didn't go to college at all. It isn't a pressure sort of idea, just something I figured would be in the cards for me. Although, I had naive ideas about college in general so yeah, there's that. 

However, about a month ago plus, I applied to a program. American Studies, so it'd be more history than politics or writing but okay. Well, I've gotten no answer because they want to see my final transcript from ASU when I'm done. 

With no plan in place for after I'm done with this degree, it got me thinking. Do I really have to go to grad school? Could I maybe make up my own "masters"? I'd been looking into a number of classes and certificates that you could do for writing, journalism, etc. What if instead of being in a program that has nothing to do with what I really want and will only look good on paper, not translate in real life; I make my own curriculum, if you will. 

Take classes with professionals, get a few certificates online, yeah it will still cost some major money but it would be learning the things I want to learn. 

There is this website called Skillshare, and it is pretty much a way to look up classes in anything (coding to design to cooking to how to live rent free in nyc - yes it's a real class, very popular) and you find classes closest to you. Now when I put in my town the closest was Stamford, and it wasn't writing. So naturally, living in CT, my next thought is one of the writing capitals of the world - New York City. 

There is one writer, Grace Bello, who has a few different classes she teaches, and I literally want to take every single one. There is one later this month on copy writing, something I've been interested in, and I think I am going to sign up! 

I am going to try to take control of my education and do what I want to do. Get crazy and wander the city taking writing classes. It sounds like a dream to me!