There are serious questions about the psychological profile you need to have to be a student. Are we all equal when it comes to the abilities needed to manage a student life? What differences are there with a self-taught person?
As I said before, I did not study like other students, having relied on continuing education, so I tend to think of myself as an eternal student, probably until the day when I will no longer be able to read or listen, but from there to becoming a student in a higher education institution when the question arose, no thank you. So, I am rather a self-taught person, as motivated as a student to learn.
So we will have to put aside the motivation that may be specific to each person: if it is obvious to a student, believe me, you also have to be very determined to try to train yourself and not fit into the mould imposed by society, especially when you know that you will never get a sales degree on the job market, generally with a lower salary, except in exceptional cases.
In fact, to all those who feel capable of taking the plunge, I say go ahead, go for your studies as much as you can, you'll see for yourself if student life suits you.
Student vs. self-taught: the differences
We can already analyse a student's ability to think about a long-term project, which is actually an intermediate and preceding project in your life. I'm not convinced that all students manage to project themselves that far, too busy managing their student life, or even once they've passed the baccalaureate to worry about what that student life will be like and there's something to think about. Nevertheless, I advise everyone to try to project themselves, if only for personal reasons, at least because of their professional project.
On the contrary, an autodidact does not bet on this in-between, he wants to go faster, not to follow the imposed rhythm of the courses of an institution, to go to the essential, without following the stages of the imposed curriculum.
In fact, I would tend to say that a student in the traditional sense of the term must be able to feel able to study many intermediate fields before accessing what may interest him/her most and/or what may seem more pragmatic.
The worst thing is that neither of the two scenarios presented is certainly better than the other:
one is seemingly longer, over a limited time, but also requires an unfailing motivation over the whole duration of one's studies, and undoubtedly makes it easier to specialise in targeted and in-depth areas of competence,
while the other is more risky, but more motivating, because it is apparently faster, over an unlimited time, and more substantial, leading to interest in various fields, but without the same level of depth, self-training being a big time consumer because it is not sufficiently controllable.
Which student profile for tomorrow?
As a professional Internet user, I also wonder about the student of tomorrow with the contribution of NICTs: will he or she be closer to the student following the guidelines of an imposed curriculum that relies on a certain amount of teaching, or will he or she be closer to the self-taught student who would be given access to a pedagogical database allowing him or her to deepen his or her areas of competence around a more intelligent framework than being left to their own devices?
Time will tell.
In the same category