Trade Comfort For A Compass: How To Lead An Adventurous Life – Year 3 – The Adventure University

(This is a continuation of the article series “Trade Comfort For A Compass: How To Lead An Adventurous Life”. If you found this portion first and would like to read from the beginning, click here: Trade Comfort For A Compass: How To Lead An Adventurous Life – Part I Introduction.)

At first, I desperately began to think how I might take everything I learned about treasure hunt adventure design for others and repackage it all into a new and different career. Talk about a niche! We used to laugh at the infamous, useless major icon of “underwater basket weaving”. Well, treasure hunt design is just about as unmarketable at the temporary job agencies.

I then considered the option of creating adventure hunts for myself, much like I did for the Keeping Up With Quinn series. I thought that maybe others would enjoy watching it, especially if I was traveling all over the country (and beyond) doing it. My video skills were still 5th grade science project level at best and I just wasn’t convinced. Still, it was the best idea I had at the time and the one that I would run with until a better one came along.

The idea for the Adventure University came from knowing that I’ve always enjoyed reading, studying and school in general – and I understood college. I didn’t mind homework (that much) and I always felt a need to impress and please my teachers/professors. I thought that it was perfect for me to structure my pursuit based off of a University because I could think in those terms (both in the planning as well as the eagerness to take on the assignments.)

That first semester was great because it helped me to set milestones. I needed to feel like I was ‘getting somewhere’ – even if the milestones were arbitrary. It wasn’t enough to just say ‘learn German.’ How much German? How do I know enough is enough? That first Semester, I’ll admit, was mostly about research, studying and learning. It was a bit in my comfort zone and I relished the thought of all of it. Mixed in were some physical assignments and ‘field trips’ when I had to put the book down and start applying some of what I was learning.

The first thing I did was figure out what I wanted to learn in each class (I.e. how many new German words to know, etc.) I then quickly gathered the needed research (without studying any of it) and created a final for each class based on the information I was looking at. I knew that the semester would literally take months and that by the time I TOOK the finals, I’d likely have forgotten what questions I asked. I was more than correct. Besides, I didn’t really care about my ‘grade’ per se. I was going to learn ALL of it no matter what, anyway. It was the structure that I was missing before, but definitely had now.

I created 12 different ‘departments’ at the University. But, instead of Mathematics, Chemistry and Political Science, they consisted of the following: German/Vietnamese (two languages I wanted to become fluent in.) History, Culture & Geography, Art & Archaeology, The Great Outdoors, Strength & Agility, Self Defense, Linguistics, Wildlife, Vehicles, Spy Craft and Weapons. I then created a series of classes (by title/subject matter only) within each department to create a natural progression. These classes were then grouped by ‘Semester’. I then broke the world up into regions and spread those regions across the classes such that when I was learning about the history of South America, I was simultaneously taking the Art & Archaeology class on South America, etc. It all seemed so perfect and I was excited to get started.

The first Semester went great – took my finals and I got all A’s (I created the finals on the first day of class, before I learned the material – after 4-5 months of the Semester I absolutely forgot what was on the final.)

The first Semester I took six classes (German, History, Strength & Agility, Art & Archaeology, Culture & Geography, The Great Outdoors). Most involved a lot of reading, studying and writing papers. Strength & Agility was all about hitting the gym while the Great Outdoors was meant to get my pasty butt outside on a regular basis. I created a few ‘finals’ on the first day (without knowing the answers) hoping that when I took the finals at the end of the semester I’d be able to answer them!

What did I learn from that first Semester? That it was a good start, but that future Semesters were going to have to look very different. Although I was able to memorize all the information I needed to, most of it was forgotten weeks later because I didn’t have a PURPOSE for the information – meaning I wasn’t going to use it. My German was a slight exception in that I have been ever building on it and the frequent practice keeps that information in my head. No. If I was going to retain this information then I was going to need to be USING it DIRECTLY on something or there’s not much point in learning it.

Semester 2 was going to be VERY different. Well, all three Semester 2’s were. What do I mean by that? Well, I started Semester 2 three different times with a unique format for each one, struggling to continue in the University…

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE – Trade Comfort For A Compass: How To Lead An Adventurous Life – Year 4 – Semester 2 COMING SOON!
CLICK HERE TO GO BACK – Trade Comfort For A Compass: How To Lead An Adventurous Life – Year 2 Meeting Quinn