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Our philosophy
About Spooniversity
Spooniversity was built by someone with POTS. Not inspired by. Not designed for. Built by — because nothing else existed that actually worked for the body we have. Someone with POTS, dysautonomia, ME/CFS, fibromyalgia, MCAS, and more.
Standard education assumes you can show up. On time. Every week. At full capacity. With the same energy on Tuesday as you had on Monday. It punishes absence, penalises falling behind, and treats inconsistency as failure.
Chronic illness doesn't work that way. Spooniversity was designed around that reality — not despite it. The first cohort is starting now.
“Chronic illness does not end ambition.
It changes the route.”
— Roi Shternin, Founder
What makes it different
No deadlines. Ever.
Your progress saves permanently. Come back in three weeks. Come back in three months. There is no expiry. No "your access ends in 30 days." You are not being timed. This is not a race. You will not be penalised for living your life at the pace your body requires.
Spoon-aware lesson design
Lessons are designed to fit within 15-20 minute energy windows. Not because we think you're slow — but because we know how much it costs to push past what your body can give. You can complete a lesson in one sitting on a bad day. That's the design constraint everything is built around.
You own what you buy
€19 per course. €59 per pathway (5 courses, save €36). No subscription, no renewal, no expiry — buy what you want, keep it forever, come back when your body lets you. If the price is a barrier, email us — we handle it as humans, not as a policy document.
Real credentials we issue ourselves
Each course ends with a verifiable LinkedIn credential — issued by Spooniversity. Real, but ours: not an accredited degree, not employer-validated by an external body. The work is real, the artefact is real, the credential lives where you control it.
Built from the inside
Roi Shternin has POTS — Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome — as well as dysautonomia, ME/CFS, fibromyalgia, MCAS, and more. Variable capacity. Post-exertional malaise. The same constraints every student here manages. Spooniversity is not an ally to the chronic illness community. It is a member of it. That changes what gets built, and why.
What's in the catalog today
Two pathways at launch. Each pathway is 5 courses for €59, or buy any single course for €19.
Bedvocates pathway
Five courses on body literacy, healthcare navigation, medical communication, advocacy in action, and a working capstone. €59 for the pathway, €19 per course.
See the catalog →BedOps pathway
Operations and people management for healthcare — designed for variable capacity. Five courses: orientation, patients & advocacy, people & teams, operations & finance, strategy & change. €59 for the pathway, €19 per course.
See the catalog →Bedcoders — sister site
Learn to code from bed, with Claude as your co-pilot. Lives at its own home — bedcoders.com — separate purchase. Not part of the Spooniversity catalog.
Visit bedcoders.com ↗Accessibility is not optional here.
Spooniversity is designed to meet WCAG AA accessibility standards as a baseline — not as a checkbox exercise, but because our students include people with significant visual, cognitive, and neurological symptoms who rely on these standards to use the platform at all.
- All text meets minimum contrast ratios (WCAG AA)
- Crash Day Mode reduces cognitive load on high-symptom days
- Keyboard navigation throughout — no mouse required
- Screen reader compatible structure with proper heading hierarchy
- Focus indicators visible on all interactive elements
- No timed assessments — ever
- Reduced motion support via prefers-reduced-motion
- Minimum 44px tap targets on mobile (WCAG 2.5.8)
If you encounter an accessibility barrier, email us at hello@spooniversity.org. We treat these as critical issues, not feature requests.
Ready to begin?
See the full Foundation curriculum before you pay anything. 14-day refund if it's not right.