If you’re looking for a way to further your education without the expense and pressure of design school, there’s another way to go about it. I wouldn’t say it’s easier necessarily, but it can be done on your own time and at your own pace with a lot of the same benefits as if you had actually taken a course.

Simple Syllabus

Many universities publish course information online for their students and a simple google search will often turn these up. Look for a syllabus and you’ll have all the information the students get their first day of class. Within a syllabus you’ll find the following:

Course name

This can be helpful if you decide later to actually take the course - you’ll know which course you’ve got a leg up in.

Location and times the class meets

Don’t crash the course.

Instructor Contact Info

Often you’ll likely find contact information for the instructor, though I don’t recommend you ever use it unless you’re enrolled. :)

Course requirements

This is great if you want to follow along with the class and try to really get the full experience. Here you’ll find what action the students are to take, including specific assignments.

Sometimes professors (or their assistants) are extra helpful in telling you in the syllabus where to locate course materials, so if you happen to be in the vicinity of a particular university (I happen to live 5 minutes from Univ. of Southern Indiana and 10 minutes from Evansville Univ.), you can go to the bookstore on campus to get special materials not publicly available. I’ve found that in most cases you don’t have to be a student to buy these materials.

Body of the syllabus

Within the main content of the syllabus you’ll find a breakdown of the schedule of the course. Although you’d never really need to follow this, there are times when it’s handy to know what’s happening and how long each thing should take. It’s good practice if you are planning to take an actual course one day, to practice sticking to a time frame. Occasionally you may find certain assignments are seasonal too, so a particular time of year may be better to do this or that assignment.

Required Readings

This is probably the best part of a syllabus and the only part you may ever need if you don’t like the idea of following along with the entire course. If you prefer, you can just snag the list of books, go check them out at a library and read at your leisure.

Oh, and don’t be intimidated if you see a particularly lengthy list. Look closer for page numbers because often professors will only assign certain chapters relevant to the course.

Sample Syllabi

“ARTH 295-910 CONTEMPORARY DESIGN](http://www.arthistory.upenn.edu/smr02/295/syl.htm “MODERN ARCHITECTURE-TCXG 379 MAT 214](http://courses.washington.edu/pubhist/modarch/modarch.htm “Information Architecture](http://www.noisebetweenstations.com/ia/ia-course.html “AR 122 TWO DIMENSIONAL DESIGN](http://www.jnevins.com/twodimensionaldesignsyllabus.htm