On Self-Education

Nowadays, self-education became normal in many areas, including business and IT. More and more people are learning something new by themselves and applying this knowledge in real life. Let us discuss some controversial topics in this area.

Why People Doing That

Most of the time, people are starting self-education because of some professional needs. For example, they may want to receive a promotion and get a bigger salary, of they want to open a new business or business branch. Let us call these cases business needs.

Another group of cases relates to the internal need of a human to learn something new to prevent mental degradation. These are often foreign languages, use complementary skills (e.g., cooking) and non-profit initiatives like charity. We may think about them as mental needs.

Finally, people like relaxation and pleasure, and they may want to learn to do it better. Hobby related activities, traveling, dancing — all there are great examples of this group of cases. Let us describe them as pleasure needs.

Pros And Cons

The apparent pros of satisfying business or mental needs is a better quality of life. Better salary and useful skills guarantee that your life is going to change for the better. And obvious pros of satisfying pleasure needs is better mental and physical health, and overall happiness.

The apparent cons of all self-education areas is an additional time (and often money) needed to learn something new. The better you want to be in some area, the more time you have to spend to achieve that. Sometimes it may be worth it, sometimes not, so it is crucial to evaluate the pros and cons of every acquired skill.

There are many other less obvious pros and cons that are specific to a person or a situation. They may include changes in lifestyle, relocation, and so on. All these changes can be both pros or cons, depending on the expectations and actual results.

Is It Worth It?

Most people are going to agree that self-education is worth it. The benefits of the acquired skills outweigh the related issues as the results and acquired knowledge help a lot in real life.

Motivation may be an issue for somebody. It may be hard to persuade yourself to do something which is not immediately required. Planning may help here — you can plan some activity which requires some missing skills. Your need for this activity will be your motivation to acquire these skills.

In general, each person has to define by himself if he wants to spend extra time in exchange for a piece of knowledge. One thing is for sure — self-education is an excellent alternative to standard education and may bring outstanding results.