"Your brain is just like a muscle, and unless you exercise it with new challenges, it atrophies," writes Chad Lovell, COO and cofounder of Allclasses, in the company's blog.
To raise awareness about the benefits â€" both professional and personal â€" of lifelong learning, and to spread the word about Allclasses, a search engine for online and offline educational opportunities, Lovell is embarking on a challenge to take 30 classes in 30 days.
"If May is the month when education is celebrated, June could appropriately be titled 'the month when learning dies,'" writes Lovell. "Graduating seniors (and pretty much all students) put their collective brains on the shelf to take a break from learning, some never to return."
To mitigate this lethargy, Lovell and Allclasses are declaring the month of June "Lifelong Learners Month" â€" and setting the example.
Throughout the endeavor, Lovell is taking classes all over the spectrum â€" from project management and Instagram marketing to pole fitness and trapeze lessons â€" in a journey of professional and personal improvement and continued education. The classes range from in-depth, multi-day courses to one-off online classes or webinars, as well as courses through platforms like Udemy, Lynda.com and General Assembly.
We talked to Lovell about his experiences with lifelong learning, the favorite classes he's taken so far and what he hopes to accomplish.
Q&A with Chad Lovell, COO and cofounder of Allclasses
How did you come up with the idea to take 30 classes in 30 days?
One of the reasons that Steve [Marcus] and I started this business is that he and I are chronic learnings. We already take a ton of classes for a multitude of reasons â€" I take coding, marketing, lifestyle classes like cooking and art, entrepreneurship classes â€" I'm always on webinars just trying to absorb new information, and kicking around ideas. It kind of morphed into this 30 classes in 30 days idea. I'm a really kinesthetic learner; I learn by doing things.
We wanted to show how easy it was to learn something new that can be applied to multiple aspects of your life for improvement â€" almost half of the classes I'm taking are on job skills and things I can do to improve my work here at Allclasses, but also things I can do to be happier, more fulfilled, healthier; just constant, continuous improvement.
Can you speak about your passion for lifelong learning? What are some of the takeaways you hope people will learn from your experiences and from Allclasses?
The world is changing really quickly right now â€" knowledge in some subjects tends to have a much shorter shelf life. You need to continually improve and learn more about those subjects. Marketing is a great example: It's changed more in the past five years than in the past five hundred years. The press, that's changed. Being a writer â€" it's so easy to go out and start a blog; if you do that, though, you need to know how to promote it.
Our whole lives, we have this curriculum that's kind of shoved down our throats, and we're not really learning on our own terms. So people a lot of times, I think, get discouraged and don't want to go out and learn something new. But there are so many things that I know people want to learn, and when you can get out and learn on your own terms, it's so much more fun and so much more fulfilling. And at the same time, we want to promote Allclasses as a resource to discover these opportunities.
What has been your favorite class so far?
That's like [asking to] pick your favorite child â€" I like all of them for different reasons. I think the nerd in me was really intrigued by the executive education workshop that I took on modeling choice with limited data, which I took at MIT. The professor was really passionate about it, and when you have a great professor, it makes all the difference. It was great because it was a free class that was offered as part of my reunion weekend, and I know a lot of universities do that.
As far as lessons go, I would say that I've always wanted to go out and do more artistic/creative things, and a couple classes I'm taking are slanted toward that. The CNC plasma cutter class â€" which was awesome â€" is gonna allow me to start creating some of the ideas I've had for metalworking. I can go rent out the plasma torch for an hour or two; that's just kind of a personal thing. I'm taking a drawing class later this month as well, and a glassblowing class. So there's a more artis tic side of me that I've been wanting to explore a little more.
Every class I've taken so far that's been professionally oriented, I've brought something back to the business. There's something I can take away from every single class I've taken.
Can you speak to the total time commitment/cost? How are you maintaining your sanity while fitting all of this into an already hectic work schedule?
[Maintaining sanity] is something I wanted to balance as I went into this. The Instagram marketing class is a great example of a class you can take while multitasking, and kind of absorb what you need to absorb and engage with the community of people in the class with you. If you can take the time to attend that class live, it's free. If you can carve it out of your schedule, there are free options. There are so many options out there that you can do at your own pace and on your own time. Some of them take an hour. Some of them you have to carve out the entire day. The way I look at it is, any employer should be thrilled to have someone taking a class like that, because it's an investment in your people.
To date â€" and this is tentative, as I still haven't booked a couple of the most expensive classes â€" I've calculated that the entire 30 days will consist of 82.5 hours of class time and cost a total of of $1,875. I measured it out to basically $22.75 per class hour. The lifestyle classes on a per-hour basis are actually the most expensive; professional classes come out to just about $15 per class hour.
How did you come up with the list of courses â€" and what class are you most looking forward to?
It started out that there were things I wanted to learn professionally, and I started jotting those down, and then I started thinking of the other things I've always wanted to do. Today I'm taking a trapeze class â€" I've gotta say, "Before I die, I did this."
I also turned to the [Allclasses] team and asked them for ideas â€" I vetoed some, but they tossed out some really interesting stuff. And also talking to some local friends â€" there's a guy here in Dewey Square that sells coffee off of a trike, and I go down there every day. He's so passionate about the beans, and how he makes the espresso and the coffee, and I asked if he would be willing to teach me a class on espresso. And he was like, "Of course I'll do it!" That was another way that we sourced classes. It's a great opportunity for us to link up. I'm really looking forward to that class â€" I love people who are passionate about what they do. I'm also looking forward to the digital sculpting class for 3D printing.
As I was searching for classes, I came across the impetus of why we started creating [Allclasses] in the first place â€" finding them is really hard; it's a really time-intensive process. There's a reason you're starting to see all these verticalize d search engines popping up â€" all these travel sites â€" you don't go to Google to search for a plane flight. This is a great example of why Allclasses is needed. We really are the most expansive when it comes to finding online/offline/multiple verticals of classes.
What's next?
Allclasses is in the midst of expanding â€" Lovell says the course offerings will multiply by a factor of about three, from around 8,000 to more than 22,000 classes listed on the site, and the platform includes offerings from prestigious institutions like MIT Sloan, Harvard Business School, Stanford, the University of Chicago and Wharton, among others.
You can follow Lovell's progress and the '30 in 30' challenge with the hashtag #Learn4Life, and on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
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