I've started taking lessons for drawing, voice/guitar, and acting, all through TakeLessons.com - an excellent service which I recommend highly.
Being reasonably bright and well into middle age, I sometimes feel frustrated by the fact that I have never managed to earn a four-year college degree. It's been due to a combination of factors, I think. Partly I guess it's that a somewhat tumultuous personal life has made it hard for me to focus on that kind of long-term goal. Also, by nature I'm one of those people who are interested in EVERYTHING, which means that given the chance, I'll spend my time taking courses over the most eclectic range of subjects without settling down on a single course of study. I always identified with the protagonist in Zelazny's 'Doorways in the Sand' (which is one of my favorite books) - a perpetual undergrad.
The good news for me is that I've learned to strategize around my strengths and weaknesses. (That's one of the benefits of getting older.) I've discovered that while I don't generally perform well in a traditional college classroom environment, I do do much better in a short, intensive, focused program of instruction - say a two-week "boot camp" - and that's where I've chosen to start investing my efforts. I earned my A+ computer certificate in 2014 despite having to contend with a broken arm.
The other good news is that the economy seems to be ready to shift more in this direction. I think there are indications that employers are going to be less hung up with what degree you earned from which university, and will start paying more attention to practical competency certifications. Also I think the whole teaching/learning process is becoming more decentralized, with less power concentrated in the hands of a few institutions.
