The End of College as we know it…

I’ve been talking about this for a while and one of my favorite thinkers, Clay Shirky, has summarized it beautifully.

Stanley Kubrick in LA

I graduated college in 3.5 years, but decided that I would spend the last semester doing a number of things that I wouldn’t otherwise have done.

If a friend told me that s/he had an interesting class, I would sit in on it.

If there was a guest lecturer somewhere, I would go. A concert, I was in.

One of the best classes that my friend and roommate, Eric Kesselman suggested was “Films of Stanley Kubrick.”

So, it was with great excitement when I headed out to LA recently and was looking for a way to fulfill my business travel policy of “do something interesting in the city, if only for 1 hour” when my colleague said, “there’s a Stanley Kubrick exhibit at the LA County Modern Art museum.”

So, that’s what we did.

Kubrick was intense, to say the least. So many iconic movies…2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, A Clockwork Orange.

I thought the exhibit did a great job of getting you into his head…the man was a control freak, perfectionist, and into his dark view of the world.

But that’s not even the point…I was just glad to get out there and open my mind a bit, taking advantage of what travel is meant to be.

World Travel in 2008

So funny that Bethel sent this to me today. It's a must watch.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Last night, I was thinking "what would it have been like for me during my 3 years in Europe and Asia if the Internet had been then what it is now?"

I was concerned that "travellers" (which I differentiate from tourists) would go to a place, use their phone or a cybercafe and never really interact w/the locals.

Shows what I know. The spirit of meeting other folks is alive and well.

Well, to some extent, we have the answer. And by the way, this proves once again that you can't "make something viral." It is or it isn't because of what it offers.

Enjoy.