I'll post a small anecdote, which I promise is not an exercise in narcissistic banality. A couple of my friends attend Green College[0] at the University of Br

I'll post a small anecdote, which I promise is not an exercise in narcissistic banality. A couple of my friends attend Green College[0] at the University of British Columbia (UBC). I crashed in their residence room for two nights during a cross-Canada road trip at the end of July. The short time at Green College restored my love of higher education, which had been flagging toward the end of a drawn-out CS degree at the University of Calgary. Every morning the students meet for breakfast at a hall in the center of the residence compound, between 7 and 9. This is much earlier than my usual wakeup time, which hovers between 10 and 11. Green College has students from a wide variety of disciplines, and discussions accompanying the meal were a general mash of ideas far outside what I would ever encounter when hanging around my school's CS labs. It was a joy to participate. The experience very clearly communicated to me that this is what I've been missing. Education in a vacuum is horrendously dull when compared to all these ideas bumping into each other around the breakfast table. It's inspiring; without the social aspect, school is reduced to jumping through hoops and learning the secrets behind magic tricks. The idea of forming a close-knit community of students then transposing it to cities around the world has me grinning. Were I younger and capable of meeting the admission requirements... [0] http://www.greencollege.ubc.ca/ http://www.greencollege.ubc.ca/