大家好，今天会讲”怎么找到适合你的教育方式”这个话题。3个简单的步骤帮你捋清思路！

Dear readers, I’d like to approach this week’s topic with a “how to” guide as always. This week, we’ll focus more on determining why and how does the education tomorrow meet your needs? So if you’re a parent or student (of any age), please read on. The main purpose of this article is to help you identify the education that you need, plain and simple. Most of the time, we’re told that we need to learn this or that’s a mandatory examination. Personally, I really don’t think any choice that is your own is really not worth your time (just my opinion). Then again, when it comes to education, it seems like we don’t think we have a CHOICE. Well, today more than ever before, your choice is actually more ACCESSIBLE and AFFORDABLE as long as you’re willing to take the time before investing into any specific course. So let me break this down into 3 simple steps for you.

为了帮助自己找到适合自己的求学之路，你可以按照以下的3个步骤：

第一步：分析什么样的教育能够满足你现在的需求。在这块，你应该看重4样东西：兴趣，理解，获取的难易程度，性价比。

Firstly, you will need to break down what kind of education that fits your current needs. This is determined by asking yourself the following key questions:

Interest: Does this kind of education interest you? Why does it interest you?兴趣：这种教育对你感兴趣吗？它为什么对你感兴趣

Tip - Start digging deep by reviewing what you enjoyed doing in the past, whether it’s your favourite high school subjects or what you enjoyed doing outside of school. If you don’t think you found this yet, then I urge you to start exploring by taking on summer programs/extracurricular activities during the year to try out more areas.

提示 - 深入研究你过去喜欢做什么，无论是你最喜欢的高中科目还是你喜欢在校外学习的东西。如果你认为你还没有发现这一点，那么我敦促你在年内参加夏季课程/课外活动以开始探索，以尝试更多的领域。

Understanding: Is this something that you’re unfamiliar with and is there a prerequisite to learn it?理解：这是你不熟悉的东西及你是否有学习它的先决条件？

Tip - If you’re unfamiliar with a topic such as sociology or international relations before university, find a mentor or book an appointment with someone who does this in the real world to ask them questions about their field of work. Ask them what prerequisites you might need beforehand to best learn this field, it surprisingly is something you already learnt, such as biology or economics.

提示 - 如果您在大学之前不熟悉社会学或国际关系等主题，请找一位导师或预约与在现实世界中做过此事的人约会，向他们询问有关其工作领域的问题。询问他们事先需要哪些先决条件才能最好地学习这个领域，它出人意料地是你已经学到的东西，比如生物学或经济学。

Accessibility: Do you need to take the time to study this and/or is this far away from you?易相处性：你需要花时间学习这个和/或离你很远吗？

Tip - This is absolutely key if you’re someone who does not have access to the types of education you’re interested in, due to geographic restrictions or that you’ve already started working and can’t take time off. Consider doing this by drafting out a planning schedule (includes time, dates and length of program) to see if it can fit your current daily life.

提示 - 如果您因没有地理限制或您已经开始工作而无法抽出时间而无法访问您感兴趣的教育类型，则这一点非常重要。考虑通过起草计划时间表（包括时间，日期和计划的长度）来确定它是否适合您当前的日常生活。

Affordability: Is this education worth you investing into? What is the return of your investment (both time and money)性价比：这个教育值得您投资吗？什么是您的投资回报（时间和金钱）？

Tip - In order to do this, you will need to conduct some market research by matching the cost of the education to the career fields available and average salary of graduates (also look at the schools that they graduated from). Take this as a guideline only to determine how much cost vs return you can get from this form of education. Check out glass door for salary comparisons.

提示 - 为了做到这一点，您需要进行一些市场调查，将教育成本与可用职业领域以及毕业生的平均工资（也请看他们毕业的学校）进行匹配。仅以此为指导，确定从这种教育形式中可以获得多少成本与回报。检查Glassdoor薪水比较。

These questions may sound easy but if you can really answer this, you will find that it’s really easy to find the appropriate education that fits you.

第二步：探索及研究一下不同的教育类型，在这里你可以分一下模块：全日制教育，职业教育，生活教育

Following that, we now need to understand the types of education that fits your needs and see if it’s available for you. There are typically 3 segments of education, formal education (the stuff you go to school for), non formal education (the professional development track) and informal education (the stuff you get from the streets or life). For this, you will first need to evaluate your current position. Think about the reasons why you need this kind of education, whether it is for work training purposes or enhancing your language abilities to study abroad. Start with evaluating what you need it for in order to determine which kind you need. Then, ask yourself what are your next steps after receiving this education by searching for workable areas for you to apply this kind of education into your purpose for learning this in the first place. Take for example that you found a right fit for taking a user experience design course during the summer before you started working, you then find a way for you to apply this into your starting job as a marketing associate by implementing the specific user experience content & framework that you’ve learnt. This will greatly enhance your job experience and also tie what you’ve learnt into what you previously didn’t know about. Many times I find that today’s students go into their college degrees hoping that by sitting into the 4 years of lecture, they will find some passion or interest which might suit them. However, after 4-5 years of that degree they’re more often confused than ever before. I think part of the reason is the lack of purpose in understanding why they studied that in the first place, the other is the lack of application, which is using their skills/knowledge that they learnt to directly impact their work in their respective fields.

第三步骤：问问你自己有没有其他教育资源能够满足你的需求呢？

Finally, ask yourself the most practical question of all - are there any alternatives to this? This is really to challenge your thoughts about traditional education and to really maximize what you can find out there. I strongly suggest you to spend some time to comb through the Internet once you’ve already decided what you want to learn, you will be surprised at what programs are available for you and how much they actually cost. One growing trend in North America has been the skills-based courses available at shorter periods of time, such as General Assembly or coding bootcamps (Le Wagon in Shanghai).

总结一下，关键是你要采取以下3个步骤，以最好地确定你的教育方向及最适合你的需求：

1. 了解什么样的教育满足你的需求

2. 探索不同的教育类型

3. 有没有别的选择

So to wrap it up, it’s critical you take the following 3 steps in order to best identify the education to best suit your needs: 1. Understand what kinds of education meets your needs? 2. Explore the different types of education? 3. Find out if there are any alternatives?