How To Make a Personal Curriculum

Step 1: Define Your Goals & Create a Master Catalog

Creating a Personal Curriculum by organizing topics into structured academic courses, you give your desire to learn a focus:

1. Brain Dump: List every subject, creative skill, or academic discipline you want to explore (e.g., Psychology, Domestic Science, Editorial Design, Digital Gardening, Permaculture)

2. Group Topics into Subject Tracks: Group related topics into progressive levels (e.g., MSD 101: Intro to Music and Sound Design > MSD 110: The Psychology of Soud Design > MSD 201: Intermediate Music and Sound Design) (Courses outside the standard 101, 201, 301, are meant to signify level of mastery required (if it starts with a one its for beginners etc.) and that it is a specialty class to be taken after the '01 courses)

3. Separate Courses Into Active and Innactive: Limit yourself to 1 to 3 active courses per block to prevent burnout. Place all other courses into an "Inactive Courses" archive for future course blocks.

Step 2. Designing Syllabi with Backward Design

Backward Design begins with the end in mind and works backward to organize study units rather than collecting random articles and wondering where they will lead.

Syllabus Building Steps:

1. Define Concrete Learning Outcomes: Think of 3 to 5 actionable skills you will possess by the end of the course. (e.g., _I will know the difference between the major forms of architecture, I will be able to make an apple pie from scratch, I will be able to speak confidently in public settings)

2. Design a Capstone Project: Choose a reasonable final project that proves you achieved what you set out to—such as a physical Home Operating Manual, a published Digital Garden Vault, or an essay synthesis.

3. Separate into Modules: Divide the course into 4 logical, sequential units. (You can further divide this but it is really easy to apply 4 units to most standard learning formats such as 4, 8, and 16 week sessions)

4. Collect Core Resources: Select 1 primary media source (textbook, video series, academic journal, etc.) per course to serve as the backbone of your learning.

5. Set Weekly Time Allocations: Allocate realistic weekly hours split into studying and hands-on studio sessions.

💡 How to Build a Syllabus When You Know Nothing About the Topic:

• Scouting Phase: Watch crash course videos or scan Wikipedia tables of contents to learn the basic vocabulary. You can also do a search for dedicated subreddits and discord channels, head to the faq section, and start your research into the topic from there.

• University Syllabi: Copy 4–6 unit titles from open university syllabi (MIT OCW, Open Yale Courses, Khan Academy, MOOCs, etc.).

• Ponder: Instead of trying to understand complex technical jargon out the gate, ask simple questions (e.g., "How do I tell apart the bird species in my area?").

Step 3: Gather Low (Or No)-Cost Learning Materials

• Low-Risk & Free College Credit:

  • ASU Universal Learner Courses (ULC)

  • Modern States

• Open Educational Resources Textbooks:

  • OpenStax & LibreTexts

  • Open Textbook Library

• Creative & Applied Skill Platforms:

  • Domestika & Skillshare (I love Domestika (Not sponsered in any way) for their "Buy it once own it forever model")

  • Coursera & edX

• Informal Media:

  • Podcasts: In Our Time (BBC), Gresham College Lectures, Huberman Lab, Ologies, Stuff You Should Know, 99%, Ted Radio Hour, etc..

  • Documentaries & TV: Our Planet, Planet Earth, PBS, I'm sure there are more.

  • Public Library Apps: Libby, Hoopla, Cloudlibrary, Kanopy.

No matter what DO NOT go download the Z-Library app as it promotes open literature access for everyone not just the wealthy. Plus if you have the extra spending money, supporting them supports this dream for everyone else too… And that would be bad surely.

Step 4: Establish a Sustainable Schedule & Study Rhythms

Structure your week so learning feels like a little treat and not a chore:

• Course Term: Run courses in 4, 8, or 16-week blocks.

• Study Timetable: Set designated study days as well as rest days.

• Lesson Blocks (120 Mins per session followed by a 30 min break is what i do but this can be highly customized):

  1. Theory & Concepts (30 mins): Reading or watching video lectures.

  2. Practical Studio Lab (50 mins): Applying the concept hands-on (e.g., knife skills drills, soldering lab, spreadsheet budgeting, or sketching).

  3. Reflection (30 mins): Logging key takeaways and asking how the concept links to your other courses or knowledge that you have previously gained.

  4. Break Time! (10 mins): I usually put this after my first 50-mins to an hour

Step 5: Make a Knowledge Vault or Second Brain ("Digital Garden")

A Digital Garden replaces linear notes with a living, interconnected web of thoughts. I am going to give a very bare bones explanation but if you want to further explore this topic I probably have my article posted on it by the time you are seeing this. If so it will be linked Yet Another Digital Gardening Tutorial < here.

1. Software?: Obsidian stores all your notes as plain-text Markdown (.md) files directly on your computer, ensuring complete data ownership and thus is what i use, but you can absolutely use another program if that fits your needs better.

2. My Personal Vault Folder Structure:

📁 Personal University Vault/
├── 📅 - Calendar & Assignments/
├── 🏠 - Index/
├──🌱 - Digital Garden/
└── 📖 - Courses/
├── Course 1/
├── Notes/
└── Syllabus/
├── Course 2/
├── Notes/
└── Syllabus/
└── Inactive Courses/

3. Maturity Stages:

   • 🌱 Seedlings: Random ideas, podcast or book quotes, video highlights, etc.

   • 🌿 Budding: Notes you've revisited and linked to other notes.

   • 🌳 Evergreen: Notes you have fully revisited and do not intend to edit on a regular basis. Meant to be a lifetime resource.

Step 6: Maintaining Momentum & Community Connection

1. "Dump First, Distill Later" Note Taking Method: Don't interrupt your reading flow to format your notes. Capture quotes quickly into a note and then refine them during review sessions.

2. Reflection: At the end of each week study, take 15-20 minutes to reflect: "What is one unexpected connection I made this week?"

3. Avoid Switching Tools: Stick with your chosen workspace (eg. Obsidian, Notion, Google Drive, Handwritten Notesetc.) for an entire course block before changing what software you use. This is incredibly helpful to avoid the burnout that can come with upending your entire system while still trying to add to it.

4. Find Digital Third Spaces: Join online communities or study Discord servers, for co-working, community connection, and mutual accountability.