It all starts with curiosity, finding the why of things and how we can use the acquired information to enrich our lives. Education pays it's greatest dividends in self-awareness and empowerment to discern and choose. Of course certain hurdles need jumping to satisfy the gate keepers, but after all is said and done, it is one's ability to understand and solve problems that allows us to choose and progress. Education in the end is for yourself and to serve yourself.
My education has taken a circuitous route that followed my interests in art, music and things literate such as theater and writing.
Through my interests in sculpture, I fell into jewelry design which led to founding a lucrative jewelry design and manufacturing business. I sold that business and decided to become a school teacher which was my original intent as a young man before diverting into art, theater, music, writing and television production.
I've always been a life long learner and that requires being open to new ideas and new ways of thinking.
Careful reading is essential to the development of thinking and communicating. It improves your vocabulary of course, but more importantly it influences your effective thinking and organizational skills so that when you are called upon to convey your own ideas you have names for your mind's impressions and an intuitive sense of how to organize your ideas when conversing or writing. An appropriate analogy might be that it is difficult to create good music if you have never listened to good music.
I've spent my long life reading, listening, watching and practicing the best of civilized culture to understand and appreciate its relevance.