p until college, we spend basically our whole lives in school, and, during school, we’re always learning and developing our minds. But what happens when we’re not in school anymore? Well, a lot of people tend to stop learning altogether! After college, you may learn how to do your full-time job and how to be an adult, but after that things tend to stay the same for a while.
While you may not be required to learn every day, there are still tons of reasons why you should. Today, explore why and how you can keep learning and exploring new ideas even after you finish school! We’ll talk about the following topics:
- Why Should You Keep Learning After College?
- Our Top 8 Ways to Keep Learning After College
Why Should You Keep Learning After College?
“Hey, I’m done with school, I won’t have to pick up a book or write an essay ever again!” you may be thinking — and you’re right… kind of. If you so choose, you can never touch a piece of educational material ever again, but should you?
Well, experts say that you should never stop learning. Life is always changing, so if you want to keep up, you should be always learning to keep up with the times.
This is the philosophy that some of the greatest minds and the richest CEOs live by. In order to be one of the best in your field, you need to keep growing and refining your techniques. A lot of the time, lifelong learning is what separates an expert from an average person.
But that’s not the only reason you should always be learning. Keeping an active mind as you move into your older years of life is actually great for your brain health.
As you age, your cognitive function will decrease. Your memory will get worse, and as you become a senior, you may have trouble remembering important information or even develop dementia or Alzheimer's. But keeping an active mind by continuing to learn after school will keep your brain functioning well for longer. When you do activities to exercise your mind like learning and puzzles, it keeps your brain healthy like a well-oiled machine!
So exactly what kind of activities can you do to make sure you keep learning after you finish school?
8 Ways to Keep Learning After College
When you graduate, you may tell yourself that you’ll try and keep learning, but it is easier said than done. Without a teacher to teach you or a grade to motivate you, it can be hard to get into the habit of learning regularly, especially when you’re busy with work. Here are our top 8 best strategies for keeping your brain active after college!
1. Continue To Take Courses
After you graduate, you may feel like you can’t take any classes anymore, but if you really want to, you can find plenty of online courses for any skill you want. Websites like Skillshare, Coursera, and edX are great places to start if online courses sound like something that might interest you. These courses may cost you some money, but you can take them no matter your age and you don’t have to be enrolled in school.
Here are some other platforms you can use to take online courses!
- Duolingo
- Khan Academy
- Linkedin Learning
- Thinkific
- Teachable
2. Read Books
If you’ve ever been in an English class, you’ve heard that reading is the best way to learn. Even though you might not have wanted to believe it at the time, it’s true. Probably the easiest way to keep learning every day is to pick up a good novel, self-help book, philosophy book, or anything that interests you and read it a little bit every day! Taking 30 or so minutes daily to pay attention to a good book will open your eyes to new ideas and perspectives! Sometimes it can be difficult to find pleasure in reading because of school, but if you take the time to find something that you are interested in, there’s a good chance that you might enjoy it!
3. Public Conferences and Lectures
If you’re looking for a more active way to learn, there are always plenty of events going on where you can attend, speak with professionals, and learn from experts in a given field. One example is the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference which takes place somewhere different every year. If you’re invested in a certain topic and would like to learn more about it, then there is probably a conference for it!
4. Join a Community or Club
Clubs and organizations exist outside of college too! If you do some looking into your local community or library, chances are you’ll find local book clubs, community events, and other activities you’re always welcome to attend. Libraries are a great place to look if you would like to do some educational community activities.
5. Puzzles
One of the best ways to keep your brain stimulated and healthy is to do puzzles like sudoku, jigsaws, riddles, and crosswords. While these may not teach you a lot per se, doing puzzles frequently will increase your thinking capacity, improve your problem-solving skills, and keep your brain healthy. There are plenty of daily online puzzles like Wordle, or you can even do the puzzles in the newspaper if you’re old-school.
6. Teaching
If you want to make learning your career, then try becoming a teacher! Believe it or not, teaching can be just as big of a learning experience as being a student. This is because when you teach a subject, you are forced to understand it on a much deeper level. You need to understand how to frame the subject in a way that makes it easy to understand for people who don’t know it as well as you. Your students will also be teaching you things along the way, even if you’re not expecting them to.
7. Podcasts and YouTube Videos
Podcasts are like online classes but much less expensive! Plus they’re easy to put on in the background while you’re going about your business every day. YouTube operates in a similar way. You can find both podcasts and YouTube videos on basically anything. You can even find full courses on YouTube for learning certain skills. A lot of podcasts and almost all YouTube videos are also completely free, so if you’re looking for a quick and easy way to learn new things whenever you want, give it a try!
Here are some other public platforms that you can use to find podcasts and educational videos!
- Spotify
- Apple Podcasts
- Youtube Music
- Google Podcasts
- Audible
8. Work learning experiences
When it comes to jobs, you’ll learn when you are first hired, but once you get the hang of things you might not need to learn anything at all for a long time. However, if you actively seek out new opportunities within your current job, you’ll keep learning new things. Your boss might even have some new things for you to do if you ask!
Always Keep Going!
Once you graduate school and start growing old, it is tempting to settle down and stop trying to grow or better yourself. But the truth is, there’s nothing telling you that you ever need to stop learning and growing as a person! There’s so much knowledge in this great wide world, and no one can ever know everything, so you’ll never run out of things to learn!
Continuing to learn after college can be done in so many different ways, so there really isn’t any excuse to stop! If you continue to learn as you grow older, you’ll have a healthier brain, a better attitude, and overall understand the world better!
