Tips for someone who wants to study biology ?

Hadoopwagon

I've been thinking about giving university a second chance and one field I am passionate about but know very little about is biology.... well, biology is quite broad, I'm specifically interested in botany (I'm a bit of a crazy plant lady, if that's a thing), pathology and genetics... which themselves are quite broad, but, as I said, I don't know enough to give a good definition of what I want to study, hence why I'm thinking about taking some courses.

a) Why I previously left college
My previous problem with universities is that I'm quite a spontaneous and competitive person with little tolerance for wasting my time in ways I find unentertaining and even less tolerance for bull****. So I can't do "mandatory classes" and I can't abide by schedules all the time. I also don't really engage in things like "homework" unless I feel it is particularly challenging... thinking about the 1001th iteration of a solved problem is boring, its the kind of thing people pay you money to do, thinking about an unsolved problem is interesting and something I'd pay money to do.

b) What I have time and can pay for
Currently I have some disposable income on my hands but I'd be hard press to spend anything above 1000euros/month on college, though this all depends on the professors and the laboratory equipment (and its availability to students), I might be persuaded to spend more (or I might be hard pressed to give even the slightest amount if the facilities lie in ruin). Schedule wise I am very flexible, I can fit work anywhere during the day/night but I sometimes need to interact more with the team depending on projects so the flexibility can shrink during various projects and times of the year. Overall I can work with semi-flexible college schedule and an average of 4-6 hours of course, laboratorie... etc per day.

c)What I want
I'm looking for a college/university/course-program around Dublin related to these are that has teachers which know how to hold a public speech and researched their subject thoroughly. Collaborates with specialists in various areas of study. Has well-equipped laboratories and allows students to use them at any time (obviously within respect to various guide lines and appointment schedules for the ones which are over-booked).

I would also prefer if such an institution organized field-trips in areas that are hardly accessible without proper training and guidance but of interest to the study of life (e.g. amazon rain forests, gargantuan bogs spread throughout Africa, deserts, oceans... basically places which are hard to reach on your own and still hold many lifeforms of which we have no knowledge).

I don't really care for or want a diploma. So I don't care much about accreditation... what I do care about is being able to sample their courses and laboratories before paying a year or more in full. I'd hate to throw 10 grand at a rip off only to later realize its a rip off.