I had a very spotty education, and although I read far more than many people I know, I’m having trouble feeling like I can’t fit in with my university peers (who go to a variety of high ranking UK institutions) due to my gaps in knowledge.
I can never seem to understand what’s going on when my peers discuss politics, philosophy, history and economics. I have literally asked whether Hitler and Stalin are friends, and I don’t even know how to spell or pronounce the names of all the random philosophers that are name dropped constantly.
I feel like this is all making me look airheaded and would like book recommendations to solve this problem.
by This_Cord
1 Comment
I would recommend two approaches one would be to get a book like The Well Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical education and use it to figure out some of the foundational knowledge base you may have missed (this goes over really basic subjects like geography, history, the western canon etc)
And the other would be to borrow some of the Norton Anthologies that give you excerpts of the “great works” like the Norton Anthology of World Literature, Norton Anthology of Poetry, etc
Good luck! Most people ime have gaps in their knowledge especially now that so many get such varied elementary and HS curriculum. Your peers may not be so knowledgeable as you think so don’t despair! GL!