Reply To: Making your own Curriculum

[Ronald Vermeij]

What has helped me, is the reverse way of how you are currently doing it Erik.
Your approach is to first build a curriculum and then start to wonder what you can do with it.
(just like your local government has organizer their school-systems)

Along the way, I’ve learned something valuable in live:
Start with (curriculum curse-list) end-goals in mind.

How did I do this?
I landed upon Blender, since I wanted to:
– create my own General Dynamics YF-16 model (end-goal 1)
– and export/import it into Microsoft Flightsimulator FSX (end-goal 2) and fly it ((end-goal 3)
Then I started to work my way backwards, so find out which skills i needed to create,meet my end-goals.

The advantages of this approach are the following ones:
– You take a direct line (back) towards your end goal, without de-tours, sideways, distractions.
– You can choose to purely focus on getting your end-goal done (quick) and learn along the way.
– You only learn new skills when you need them on your project
– You do not overload your head with courses you do not need (yet), keeping your mind empty and light.
– You can instantly practice on a model which will become your end-goal.
– You get quicker results, which helps to build confidence in your own skills faster.

If you want to take a peek at my curriculum building, take a look over here:
General Dynamics YF-16 Prototyge – Full background story
Flickr – YF-16 prototype photo-albums and references

I hope these tips are useful for you.