The Experiment

Let us begin our grand tale at the beginning: About two weeks ago, Brandon and I were riding the train to downtown Salt Lake City in a search for jobs (which continues to this day - this job market sure is doing a great job of building my character), when our discussion settled on the subject of going back to college at summer's end. You see, school had just let out, and both of us had rocky experiences this last semester, to say the least. We also shared a common lack of orientation concerning our desired future career paths.

Our first discussion was textbooks. "Too expensive!" I said. "Open-source textbooks!" He said. "Okay, then!" said I, glad at last to have resolved one of higher education's greatest ills.

Our next discussion was professors. "Useless!*" I said. "Teach yourself!" He said. "Less effective than professors! Teach someone else!" I said. "Okay, then!" said he, likewise relieved at the resolution of this long-unsolved plight. *Okay, I'm being pretty hyperbolic, but I think you get my point.

We decided to start an experiment between the two of us. This was our central question: can we ingest a full semester's course-load of information during the summer without entering into a classroom or purchasing a textbook? The hypothesis: yes, we can. The measurement: CLEP tests. The experimental process: form study groups that congregate at libraries.

Having chosen our path, we abandoned our search for jobs (which our parents were later rather unhappy about) and decided to pop into the nearest bookstore and look for books we could read in order to begin feeding our knowledge right then and there (the main objective was to find Philosophy for Dummies). No luck. The bookstore happened to be an Antiquarian bookstore, with stacks on stacks of outdated, confusingly organized books. So we took a moment's break from our search and sat in two overstuffed armchairs on the second floor and took stock of our enterprise. What was it that we wished to learn about? We made a list - well, it was a Venn diagram, to be exact.

Off we tromped to the Salt Lake City public library, list in hand, hoping to have better luck finding the books to suit our needs. Better luck we had. In about twenty minutes I was plunging into concepts about the existence of God, metaphysics, deontology, Aristotle and radical skepticism and Brandon was getting a brainful of the Stoics, Bool, Aristotle (he must have been pretty important, for both of us read a great deal about him that day), enthymeme, syllogism, etc.

It took less than an hour for both of us to fulfill long-held dreams. For me: to study philosophy. For Brandon: to study logic. And to think, we could have finished our train ride and filled out applications all afternoon.

Suddenly I am seated in the future. I've read the Sri Isopanisad (the foremost collection of Hindi mantras - highly recommended, whether you're Hindu or not. I'm not, and I enjoyed it immensely), Philosophy for Dummies, and an introductory guide to microeconomics. I've finished my first lessons in French (using a resource produced by Carnegie-Mellon University - the Open Learning Initiative: 100% free online courses) and learned some fundamentals of programming in C# - objects, classes, methods and variables. Whoa.

So - onto the rest of the expirement, which shall be documented in this blog. I will be studying French, Introductory Philosophy, Microeconomics, and Principles of Marketing with the goal of passing each of the associated CLEP tests by Jan. 1, 2011 (some of the tests cover much more than one year's worth of study). Can I learn the full load of the information? Is man capable of independent thought? Can society hold up against a challenge aimed at one of its most fundamental institutions? Is there such a thing as truth? Don't touch that dial, kids - I've a feeling you're about to find out.