Zen College Life

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If you are anything like me you like to dip your feet into a million different subjects and fields of knowledge. But with your interests growing daily, you need sources that can keep up and feed the information quickly. Well, after years and years of trying to find the right sources, I think I have compiled a list of places where you can hit the URL, type in the subject, and quench your thirst for basic or advanced knowledge in that field. So whether your interest is science or homekeeping, poker or knitting, football or computers, I think that one of these sources will be able to feed your hunger for fast, free, quality information to better educate yourself.

Let us begin with the ever popular Wikipedia. If your subject exists anywhere in this universe, you can probably find out some basic information about it on wikipedia. Like collecting stamps? You can bet wikipedia has you covered.

Another great, yet unappreciated source of education is Youtube. I have used youtube for everything from learning to do a backflip to how to play “Sweet Child of Mine” on the guitar. Looking to try something new? Give it a search on youtube, and see if you can’t learn if from someone else.

I also love learning through my iPod. I use it for podcasts, audiobooks, lectures, pre-recorded speeches, and sometimes even music. Hehehe. If you appreciate learning through your ears, I have a few good sources for you. One good source is LearnOutloud. They have everything from Arts to self development to travel. Audiobooks, lectures, speeches, podcasts, you name it. It it comes in an audio format, you can probably find it here. Somethings are free, some you have to pay for. But overall it’s a great site.

Another excellent audiobook source is Aubible. I like audible because the quality of their material is excellent, often read by the author of the book themselves. Audible has a deal right now, only $7.49 per month for 2 audiobooks a month. If you sign up for this one, I guarantee you will be satisfied.

For How-To’s and Instructionals I have a couple of great sources. One of them is Quamut. Quamut is basically a quick ‘dummies guide’ to a million different subjects. I usually go here to find new things that interest me, before seeking out more advanced material on the subject. A couple more how-to’s worth mentioning are eHow (how to do just about everything), Videojug (Life explained. On film), VideoLectures (where ideas are exchanged, and knowledge is shared), and 5min (learn how to do a variety of things through video, in just 5 minutes or less). Instructables (The world’s biggest show and tell) is a great site for learning how to do things by seeing how someone else has done them, through documentation and pictures. There are some pretty interesting projects there.

Now if I want to do some serious research on a subject or topic of interest, I break out my arsenal. There isn’t enough time to describe each of these, but they always get the job done, so I’ll list them for you.
http://www.bartleby.com/
http://www.epodunk.com/
http://www.britannica.com/
http://www.scholarpedia.org/
http://www.jstor.org/?cookieSet=1
http://oedb.org/library/college-basics/research-beyond-google
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/
http://www.xist.org/default1.aspx
http://www.theoi.com/
http://plato.stanford.edu/
http://www.religion-online.org/

If you can’t find what you’re looking for within one of these websites, that is because it doesn’t exist. Don’t despair, though, because this means that if you can create it, you can probably get rich… And if you do, I think I deserve a cut. I think a minimum of 50/50 would suffice.

Anyways, If you have any sources of your own that I could add to this extensive list of knowledge, please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you!

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