Good morning Hank it’s Tuesday I had, like, the best weekend
ever watching the football first in London and then in Wales
and now I am home and jetlagged and I guess, going back to college?
When my children were younger, and I watched their soccer games
I would sometimes think,
“If you let me out onto that field, I would destroy these seven-year-olds.”
Like, I am an exceptionally poor soccer player,
but 45 year old me could score a lot of goals in seven-year-old soccer.
Like, I don’t know how to say this generously, but even the quote unquote good
seven-year-old soccer players are, in fact, terrible.
Anyway, this is kind of how I have imagined going back to college.
Lke, I have less free time now than I did at 19,
but I am so much more capable and prepared.
I was just never a good student, I sort of felt like school was the price you
had to pay in order to live life, Which wasn’t about history or literature
But was about friendships and obsessive crushes and binge drinking.
For whatever reason, I never quite understood that the point of school
is not actually to get a degree or fulfill expectations or whatever;
the point of school is to better understand the universe and your place in it.
But then after I got out of school,
I did fall in love with learning– like, over the last year,
I have read a ridiculous number of books about tuberculosis,
even though learning about TB is in no way my job.
Like–and this is not the point of the video– but did you know that in 2022,
more people died of tuberculosis than died of homocide, war,
malaria, typhoid, and cholera combined?
Tuberculosis–a disease that is almost always curable–nonetheless
kills a million and a half people per year.
Why did I grow up thinking that TB was primarily a disease of 19th century poets?
Why is the world not on fire with the injustice of tuberculosis?
These are very interesting questions to me, and I am exploring them in my free time
for … fun? Which would would've
been very difficult to explain to my 19-year-old self.
Also, I’m just like much more, like, much more capable and confident
then I was back then.
Like, in 1999 it required a significant
outlay of energy for me to write a three-page paper.
But now, I can do that,
I mean, I write a three-page paper every Tuesday.
But all that noted,
I am of course romanticizing the collegiate learning experience.
Right? When I fantasize about going back to college,
I only think about taking courses That fit my interests and talents
Which is not college as most people experience it.
Like, at most universities,
college is not made up entirely of classes called, like, The Captain of All These Men
of Death: Toward A Social History of Tuberculosis.
You also have to take classes called, like, uuhh, math.
So Hank, you’ve just announced Study Hall,
a partnership between Complexly, Arizona State University,
and Google to offer a pipeline from educational YouTube video
to actual college credit. And I just think it’s brilliant–
Like, you pay $25 to sign up and take a course,
and then only after you’ve finished and received a grade,
do you decide if you want to pay for college credit.
This can lower the overall cost of college education in the U.S.
but critically, it also means that you don’t have to take on
a bunch of loans before you even start and find out
if a program’s approach to learning is right for you.
I am so overwhelmed by how awesome it is that I have signed up to
take two classes starting in March.
One is a course that aligns with my romantic notion of college–
a class in American History up to 1865. I feel like I should do okay in that one?
But the other, Hank, is a terrifying specter on the horizon–
Math.
I am in favor of math. I know it’s beautiful when people
who love math talk to me about how and why they love it. I feel their enthusiasm
and wonder. But it is so, so hard for me. I just barely got out of high school math
with C’s and D’s. Can I pass college math?
We’ll find out starting in March!
If you want to learn more about Study Hall, there are links in the dooblidoo
to gostudyhall.com and the Study Hall YouTube channel
Hank, I continue to be astonished
by the stuff you help bring into the world
I will see you on Friday.