I’ve done this many times. Classes in art, philosophy, psychology, math and others. It’s not unusual for me to be the best student in the class, with the instructor saying “you’ve obviously taken this course before.”
Oh, yeah, in a heartbeat… if I could afford it.
Since I can’t afford it I do it on the cheap, studying things on line in my own time. It’s not quite the same, but I just can’t seem to stop learning.
There are a lot of people who are the opposite - they don’t want to learn new things. That’s nothing new. The world has always had both sorts of people I suspect each camp has never quite understood the other.
My wife and I have talked about taking a language class together, either Spanish or ASL, just for fun.
Sounds great to me. I’ll bet going for a BA/BS as a grup would be much more of a breeze than it was when I was an energetic & uptight tweenager.
Learning a language with a future travel partner is a fantastic idea.
I would love to go back to college, now that I’m old enough to not feel the pressure of training for a career. Learning is great when you don’t need to pass the exams.
I’ve taken Italian evening classes before now (and didn’t feel bad when I didn’t do the homework), and if I had the chance, I’d happily go and do a history degree. Also practical classes - I love a bit of DIY and work in a creative profession, so I’d love to know everything from how to plumb a bathroom to build a garden shed.
Absolutely, I’ve already found a nearby art academy that has programs specifically for the community, apart from their degree/professional track. I have some training in art from the past, and want to focus on painting.
In addition, I would love to study economics in a university setting. Back when I was in college, I didn’t know nuthin’ about such things. But now I’m very interested in the subject. But that might be a bit more of a stretch to get into. Universities would obviously prioritize traditional degree track students when filling seats. I wouldn’t want to take the space away from someone.
Learning ( or studying ) is one of my favorite things. It’s a hobby, I guess.
If a subject piques my interest, I’ll start by reading about it. I’ll search out and read books with different points of view. On most subjects I’ll read between 6-12 books, sometimes less if the subject is obscure, more if it’s not. I explore the question and contradictions I find by seeking out additional materials, usually articles or research papers. Note, I don’t care much for things like TED talks or YouTube videos. I think actual books are more dispassionate and informative. In addition to reading, I’ll write essays on various aspects of the subject. That helps my consolidate my thought process.
I was only recently that I began defining this as a hobby. The truth is, I enjoy it so much I thought of it as a somewhat obsessive guilty pleasure.
50 years ago, my eighth grade Geography class teacher would often emphasize the need for us to acquire a “thirst for knowledge”. We all would laugh at her (behind her back) about such a STUPID concept, but for some reason the notion stuck with me, and thankfully remains to this day.
It’s a shame so many people approach formal education as merely a necessary evil to be endured as a means to an end for financial advancement. There are however, people who actually enjoy the process, and their curiosity in subject matter often expands as they age. The OP’er appears to be such a person, and I think that is wonderful. Go for it!
Not to me. I’ve always been really, really smart, so every environment that tried to teach me something went very very slow from my perspective. When I read reference material I always note poor and dry writing style as much or more as I notice the information and spend more time being unimpressed than I do being engrossed in the information. Basically I lost my taste for learning before I ever developed it.
Add to that the fact that my memory for useful details has basically checked out and headed for the hills, and there’s really no incentive. The only things I reliably remember nowadays are details about books, movies, and pop culture - things I learned incidentally while doing other things that were fun.
So, you don’t learn how to fix things around the house? How to cook a different meal? How to play a game better? How to improve on whatever it is you do all day?
I don’t fix things around the house, I don’t cook, and when I play games or improve on what I’m doing I figure out how to do it better - I don’t go and learn it from some outside source.
Fair enough. Although I would consider “figuring something new out” as learning 
I currently am a mature student, and I still sometimes find it a bit hard to not sign up to interesting courses, even though rationally I know I need to focus on the course I’m paying a lot of money for. I’ve done short courses on silversmithing, pottery, beginners tiling and plumbing (free for unemployed people, which I was at the time), plus a bunch of really miscellaneous stuff online like Greek history.
On my course, there only appears to be a few people who show up when it’s not something for the grade, and I have a really hard time understanding it. Everyone says they’re really interested in the topic, but they’re only there when they have to be. No taking advantage of all the extras. Perhaps oddly, the people who do show up to extras are all about 19-23 years old, it’s not the other mature students.
Sure I would, but I am still too busy doing mathematics. But when I was 45, I decided to take a course in linguistics. Well, sit it, not take. I spoke to the professor and he agreed. It was fascinating, Chomsky all the way. Then I took another and finally wrote a paper that got published in a linguistics journal, then lost interest.
I LOVE learning new things and plan on doing that my whole life.
This reminds me of something that happened this year. My son plays hockey and I was sitting in the stands reading during a practice. A parent saw me and asked what I was reading. I explained that it was a history of steam power and she gave me this wonderfully puzzled book and asked, “So, like, a *learning *book?”
Some people don’t really enjoy learning new things. I’m not one of those people.
I love learning new things. I keep threatening my wife I’m going to go back to school and get a Ph.D. but without a carrot of recognition or money I have no urge to put up with the bullshit of a formal education process. I just spent two days researching a type of still that was invented in the US in the 1850s and was the predominant rye whiskey still until prohibition but didn’t make it back afterwards. It was fascinating and I’m working on a way to get several built to take the next step into researching its practical modern application.
That’s a blast but today I’m not working on that project. Having to show up every Wednesday at 10 am or do homework or take tests. Really I’d just rather buy the professor a beer after I’ve read all the literature and talk about it then maybe come back in a couple of months an do it again.
Many major universities let their alumni over certain ages, audit classes for free.
Absolutely yes. In fact as I’m nearing the end of my own going-back-to-school career reorientation thingamajig there’s a dozen other degrees I wish I could pursue next or would have pursued. But then again my dream career has always been “unproductive student for life” :o. Sadly, they don’t pay you for that. Curses ! Foiled again !
FWIW there always were a handful of grey hairs in our lecture halls, so your idea isn’t that “out there” nor should your fear being all alone amidst the brahs. Typically they didn’t show up for anything degree- or final evalutation-related since, well, why would they have bothered ? But IMO that’s sort of missing out. Sure, there’s a lot of annoying nonsense that goes on with essay methodology and memory tests and whatnot, and TAs are not all made equal either ; but the process of studying and researching for a given essay or presentation, the narrower scope and focus of it was rewarding/interesting in and of itself more often than not. Got me to do deep dives on subjects or people I wouldn’t have looked twice otherwise, or look at phenomenons I thought I’d well understood from completely different angles. Lectures and library cards alone don’t scratch that itch, nor let you shoot the shit directly with specialists of a given subject.
“a *learning *book” is my new favorite phrase. It tells you everything you need to know about the person uttering it.
mmm
Is it a lack of curiosity or is it that learning itself is difficult?
I mean, my insane curiosity drives my desire to learn about stuff- I want to know how to do things, how they work, what they do, etc… it’s endlessly fascinating and surprising. Even learning how to do something better than I did before is enjoyable because I learned how to do it better.
Otherwise things are just so boring…
So you said you play games- do you enjoy learning how to play them, or figuring out alternative ways to win?
I suspect maybe you don’t like research, not necessarily learning itself.