Is the name "The Road Less Traveled" too cheesy?

How to begin?
If I were writing fiction, I’d probably start with “once upon a time,” but this is a work of nonfiction. Still, I suppose a nonfiction story can begin with a hopeful sentiment: I am fulfilling a goal and working toward a dream.

I began my Master’s in Teaching and Education with a focus in English while I was teaching in 2022. Because I was working full time at a Christian school, I received a generous scholarship from Maranatha Baptist University, and the school I taught at also provided financial aid to help me continue my studies. Thanks to that support, I completed about 85% of my degree.

However, when I stopped teaching, all of that financial assistance disappeared, and I could no longer afford to finish my degree. I’m finally in a place now where I will be able to complete it next summer, but this experience taught me something important: if I ever want to pursue additional formal education, I will either have to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket or go into debt to do it. I understand that institutions need to charge students to keep their programs running and to compensate faculty appropriately — but my goodness! For people like me, it’s almost impossible to shell out that kind of cash.

After a lot of thought and research, I realized those weren’t my only two options. What looked like a choice between spending thousands or going into debt was actually a false dichotomy. I found a third way — and I’m excited to share it with you.

To create my course of study, I went on several universities’ websites and compiled books that most commonly appear in reading lists for M.A. programs in Literature and Classical Education. I focused on universities that reflect my personal values; for example, much of the classical education reading list comes from Hillsdale College. I also used ChatGPT to help identify books that frequently appear on college literature syllabi. The result is a master list of texts that I will be reading over the next 18 months.

Through this blog, I’ll show you how you can continue your education in a meaningful way while I model it alongside you.
Join me as I embark on this journey through some of the greatest literature ever written!