Get smart! Two great resources for people with "learning hunger"

Except for a weak period that I had during my teens I have always been a very curious person who loves learning. However, never before have I learned at a rate that is comparable to my current learning pace. What is this all about? I will tell you!



About two months ago I discovered two fantastic knowledge resources and since then I have been listening or watching lectures when I am on the bus, taking a walk, doing the dishes, cooking, running, playing soccer etc (OK, that last one was not true, but its close). I really really recommend both of these websites to anyone who likes to learn things.

The two sources are:
1. Berkeley webcast
2. The Teaching Company

The first one is University of California, Berkeley's webcast (see picture). Here you can watch or listen to lectures in many different field ranging from biology, physics and chemistry, to philosophy economics and non-violence. I am currently watching "physics for future presidents", which is a great great great (I don´t know how else to describe it) lecture series by professor Robert Muller. He goes through pretty much all of physics in a very interesting and intriguing way. One guy commented on Google video that "I would listen to this guy (Robert Muller) even if he had his pants down while talking". I have also been watching introduction to chemistry to try to really understand quantum mechanics, which is still difficult though...

The second resource is perhaps even better. The teaching company hand picks the best professors in the world and asks them to make a series of lectures in their field of expertise. You can order the lecture from their website, or if you are the hacker type the courses are sometimes available for download. The quality is consistently top class. I have already taken 24 or 36 lecture courses in the following fields.

(1) Neurobiology of behavior, by Robert Sapolsky at Stanford University
(2) Introduction to economics, by Timothy Taylor at Macalester College (this guy actually made me realize that economics can be interesting)
(3) Argumentation, by David Zarefsky at Northwestern University
(4) History of Russia, by Mark Steinberg at University of Illinois
(5) Understanding the Human Body, by Anthony Goodman at Montana State University (he used to be the general surgeon)

As the teaching company says in the introduction to their courses "Imagine how much you could learn if you spent 30min everyday in the best classrooms in the world".