Dashboard College: Turn Your Drive Time into a College-Level Education, 25 Minutes Each Way

Gary North

How would you like to convert your drive time into the equivalent of a college education, but with no reading required?

I did not say a college degree. I said a college education.

Most college graduates cannot tell you the names of more than a few professors ten or 15 years after graduation -- maybe only five years after. They recall little of the content of their courses. They don't remember their textbooks. Yet they went to college. They passed the exams. They earned their degrees.

For what? An education? No. For the degrees. They got their tickets punched.

What should a college education be? Ideas that challenge your thinking, based on evidence that demands a verdict. Ideas that stay with you for the rest of your life. Ideas that change how you define yourself, your work, and your legacy. Ideas that stick.

Students rarely get any of this in college. They just get their tickets punched.

A great lecture by a skilled professor is rare. A great lecture that is designed to be a stand alone (sit alone?) experience that changes the listeners' lives is unheard of. (How many have you ever heard? I can think of only one in four years of college and eight years of grad school.)

A great college lecture is aimed at students in a classroom taking notes. A great drive time lecture should be designed to fit the average drive time, which is 25 minutes.

They are different kinds of lectures. They must be created differently. They must be delivered differently.

A great classroom lecture is a grand performance. A great drive time lecture is a chat, but without the give and take. Just the give.

Someday, I would like to get 20 or 30 professors to do two or three courses reach for this site. I want great communicators. I want them to design their talks to be listened to in a car. I want them to solve this problem: "How can I get people to understand and remember, but without taking notes?"

I have a dream. Sadly, I don't have a plan. Still, I know what needs to be done. I hope someone does it.