Setting your 'Personal Curriculum'

The people yearn for pedagogy

A new bookish trend is taking social media by storm. Forget the ‘TBR’ (‘to-be-read’ list), the yearly reading challenges, and the Goodreads awards. Make way for the ‘Personal Curriculum’ — a term coined by TikTok creator, Elizabeth Jean.

The Personal Curriculum is exactly what it sounds like: it’s a scholastic structure consisting of reading lists, projects, rules, and homework which you set for yourself.

Booktokers are setting themselves homework optionally — if you can believe it!

In many ways, it’s great. It encourages people to be intentional about how they spend their spare time. It empowers them to embrace self-study, without having to fork out for a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree. It makes learning accessible, personal, and fun. It harks back to the studia humanitatis of the Renaissance, when studying the arts in one’s spare time was simply the done thing.

But, like every internet vogue, the ‘Personal Curriculum’ has pitfalls and precedents. If you want to get the most out of your personal academic pursuits, you have to be deliberate about how you go about it. You need purpose, structure, and goals.

For four years, I worked as a supervisor at the University of Cambridge, teaching English to undergraduates and postgraduates. During that time, I designed a number of curricula (for instance, ‘sex and gender in the 18th century’, ‘Romanticism’, and ‘art criticism’), and learned exactly what makes a good humanities course! …and also what really, really doesn’t.

Footage of me in the classroom.

The perfect Personal Curriculum formula:

1. Pick a topic

2. Curate primary sources (2-3 is enough)

3. Curate secondary sources (1-2 books, or 3-4 essays)

4. Add a ‘non-reading’ component: movies, TV, podcasts, documentaries

Let’s say you wanted to focus on ‘The Italian Renaissance’. Your primary sources might be the writings of Giorgio Vasari, Machiavelli, and Petrarch. Your secondary source could be The Cambridge Companion to the Italian Renaissance. Your non-reading component could be Netflix’s adaptation of Boccaccio’s The Decameron. That’s it. That’s your curriculum!

If you wanted to learn more about Art, you might focus on colour theory, or Classical architecture; for Literature, you could think about the works of Shakespeare, or metaphysical poetry; for History and Politics maybe feminism and intersectionality, or animal rights are up your street. The list goes on.

There are infinite iterations of what your Personal Curriculum might look like. I can’t choose for you. That’s the beauty of it: you get to pick what to put in your own brain.

Gustave Caillebotte, ‘Portrait of a Man Writing in His Study’ (1885)

Top tips to make studying actually fun

1. Keep it simple

Focus on a niche topic. Rather than saying ‘I want to learn about art’, you might say ‘I want to learn about Impressionism’. This gives you the chance to read really deeply around a niche topic, rather than skimming the surface of a broad one.

Don’t overburden yourself. It’s so much better to read one book really carefully than it is to skim-read and barely scratch the surface of ten different articles. Keep your reading list short.

Figure out your end goal. It’s good to have something to show at the end of your learning project. That might look like a finished reading journal, a bunch of annotated books, a completed pin board, perhaps even a Substack article.

Adelaide Labille-Guiard, ‘Portrait of a Woman’ (1787)

2. Beware misinformation

Trust good publishers. Make sure your primary sources are published by reputable names: Penguin Classics, Oxford World’s Classics, Everyman’s Library, or anything from a university press.

Accessing the good stuff. You can read classic literature for free on Project Gutenberg (these are usually first or second editions). You can also join your local library, who might offer free access to online databases like JSTOR.

Be critical of critics. When you read reviews, literary criticism, journalism… take them with a pinch of salt. Ask yourself, who wrote this? Do they have qualifications? Are they well-respected? Have they cited their sources? Do they have a particular agenda? Know who you’re reading.

Beware online summaries. If you don’t read the primary texts, how will you generate any original thoughts, ever? Don’t fear difficult literature. You don’t have to understand every single word; in fact, that’s sort of the point.

Jan Davidsz de Heem, ‘Still Life with Books’ (1628-29)

3. Back to school

Group learning. Thinking out loud, with others, encourages you to embrace different perspectives. That’s the ‘Socratic dialogue’. So, to simulate that at home, I’d recommend making your personal curriculum with at least one other person: involve your partners, friends, and online communities. Comment on YouTube videos and Spotify podcasts. Get out there and talk to people!

Create a school ‘term’. To avoid burning out, you should set your curricula according to blocks: one month, 2 months, 6-12 week terms, or seasonal quarters. Your modules should have a clear start point and end goal, with a break in the middle. There’s a reason we run school terms like that.

Take yourself on school trips. To galleries, museums, libraries. Go on a literary walk or pilgrimage. Go look at street art. Sit in a park or restaurant… observe, write, and think. Go touch some grass.

Raphael, ‘The School of Athens’ (1509-11)

4. Think outside the box

Don’t just ‘read’. Listen to audiobooks and podcasts; watch movies, TV shows, and YouTube essays. Look at paintings, sculptures, and architecture. Even some video games are educational: for instance, Assassin’s Creed: Discovery Tours which lets you explore Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, the Viking Age and Medieval Baghdad.

Milestones. Reward yourself when you get to the end of a module. It’s a good motivator! Some great academia-themed treats could be an afternoon at a second-hand bookstore, some stationery, or a new pair of glasses…

Schedule, space, ritual. Structure your study time around your life. Carve out a couple of hours a few times a week. Make sure you have a quiet space to work. Have little signifiers which get you into the right mindset: music, candles, a glass of wine. Imagine you’re an ancient philosopher. Romanticise your learning.

Closing thoughts

Modern-day school curricula are not about the formation of the self, creativity, or connection. They are about utility and employability. This is why arts subjects lack for funding, and why examination results are seen as the measure of success.

I think that the recent popularity of this ‘Personal Curriculum’ concept is arguably a reaction to the institutional devaluation of the arts. People are drawn to the idea that education might, in fact, be a sufficient end in itself.

And I’m here to tell you that it absolutely is!

Non scholae sed vitae discimus… we do not learn for school, but for life.

---

Thanks for reading! If you’d like to support my work, but can’t commit to a full-time subscription, why not leave a tip?

Check out my Instagram at @culture_dumper and my TikTok @theculturedump, where I post daily updates.