Reigniting a love of learning
A little over 2 years ago, as we all know, everything changed. I was in the middle of the Spring semester of my sophomore year. We were on spring break in the Dominican Republic, sitting on the beach sipping pina coladas when we got the email from school that classes would be online for the next three weeks, the following day over breakfast we found out that classes would be canceled for the rest of the school year.
This is probably a familiar story for a lot of people. For the next year and a half, I went on with school and internships online. While I did learn a lot in that time, both from my classes and those internships, the excitement I’d once had for learning had faded to something dull in the back of my mind. This isn’t to say I didn’t take interest in new books or painting techniques, or that I didn’t pay attention to my classes, but the passion wasn’t there.
One of the things that I did start doing a lot more during the pandemic was running and going on long walks just to get out of the house. On these runs and walks, I found my mind wandering a lot. A friend suggested that I try listening to a couple podcasts to keep my brain entertained while jogging through my neighborhood and even though I’d never really liked podcasts before then, I gave it a shot and I’m so glad I did.
For me, diving into science and history podcasts has been a way to reignite an interest in learning something new purely for the sake of learning it and enjoying that. It’s also been a wonderful way to focus my mind on a new and interesting subject instead of stressors. I spent a year and half of my college career on Zoom, and learning had become a chore — for the grade, to finish school and move on — but not for joy and excitement. Now, I’m learning about the way people lived in Ancient Rome, the world of Wildlife Ecology, incredible women in history, and so much more I never knew I could be so interested in.
Here are some links to a few of my favorite podcasts that get me excited about all there is to learn.
· Nobel Blood with Dana Shwartz
