Masterclass Archives | Page 5 of 7

Great Courses – Think like a Stoic: Ancient Wisdom for Today’s World by Massimo Pigliucci.

May 29, 2021 In Great Courses 8 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” – Marcus Aurelius

Stoicism is an ancient Greco-Roman philosophy of life that’s analogous in its scope to philosophies or religions like Buddhism, Confucianism, or Christianity. It aims at helping people navigate everyday existence and the challenges that it may pose, as well as reflect on the broader meaning and direction of their lives. What should our priorities be? How should we interact with our fellow human beings? How are we to face the inevitable setbacks and finally face our own mortality? These are some of the questions that Stoicism helps us address in the pursuit of what the ancients called a eudaimonic life—that is, a life that is truly worth living.

Wayne Gretzky’s Masterclass on the Athlete’s Mindset.

May 22, 2021 In Masterclass 7 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

“You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.”

Wayne Douglas Gretzky ( born January 26, 1961) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player and former head coach. He played 20 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for four teams from 1979 to 1999. Nicknamed “the Great One“, he has been called the greatest hockey player ever by many sportswriters, players, the NHL itself, and by The Hockey News, based on extensive surveys of hockey writers, ex-players, general managers, and coaches.

Gretzky is the leading goal scorer, assist producer, and point scorer in NHL history, and garnered more assists in his career than any other player who scored total points.

As long as you love what you’re doing, stepping into the spotlight is just another chance to make an impression: Balance confidence with humility, and work on getting the most from every opportunity.

Lessons Learned from David Carson’s Masterclass Session on Graphics Design.

April 24, 2021 In Masterclass 12 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

David Carson was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1954; his father, a test pilot, worked on NASA’s early lunar landing program. But David preferred surfing to the skies, so he made his way to Southern California, where he studied at Fullerton College and San Diego State University, earning top marks and a sociology degree. It gave him a keen understanding of how individuals communicate with society and sharpened his research and critical evaluation skills.

After finishing his bachelor’s degree, David taught sociology at Torrey Pines High School near Del Mar, California. He immersed himself in the regional culture—at one point, he reached the top level of the state’s pro surfing circuit—and didn’t take a graphic design course until the age of 26, when he spotted a listing for a two-week class at the University of Arizona, taught by artist and designer Jackson Boelts. The work struck a chord; David enrolled at a small art school in Oregon and, the following summer, signed up for a three-week workshop in Switzerland.

Lessons Learned from N. K. Jemisin’s Masterclass Session on Fantasy and Science Fiction Writing.

April 17, 2021 In Masterclass 11 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

“The Most celebrated science fiction and fantasy writer of her generation.” – The New York Times

N(ora). K. Jemisin is a New York Times-bestselling author of speculative fiction short stories and novels, who lives and writes in Brooklyn, NY. In 2018, she became the first author to win three Best Novel Hugos in a row. She has also won a Nebula Award, two Locus Awards, and is a recipient of the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship. In addition to writing, she has been a counseling psychologist and educator, a hiker and biker, and a political/feminist/anti-racist blogger.

N. K. Jemisin’s session is by far one of the best masterclass session have seen on the materclass.com platform. I have seen almost all the writers on the platform: Dan Brown, James Patterson, Neil Gaiman, Malcolm Gladwell, Margaret Atwood, Shonda Rhime, David Baldacci, Joyce Carol Oates, Judy Blume, R.L.Stine, Bob Woodward, Roxanne Gay, Salman Rushdie, Walter Mosley.

Lessons Learned from Walter Mosley’s Masterclass Session on Fiction and Storytelling.

April 3, 2021 In Masterclass 7 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

You can not have a novel without a story but the story is not the novel.

Walter Ellis Mosley (born January 12, 1952) is an American novelist, most widely recognized for his crime fiction. He has written a series of best-selling historical mysteries featuring the hard-boiled detective Easy Rawlins, a black private investigator living in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California; they are perhaps his most popular works. Mosley started writing at 34 and has written every day since, penning more than sixty books and often publishing two books a year.

This story, like all great stories, begins with a single sentence:

“On hot sticky days in southern Louisiana, the fire ants swarm.”

In the mid-1980s, Walter Mosley, a computer programmer, types out these words in a quiet moment. He’s 34 years old. He’s never thought about being a writer, but something about the sentence stays with him. He thinks it sounds like something that could be in a book—and it’s the first time he thinks maybe I could be a writer. He’s been reading Alice Walker’s The Color Purple and is excited by what that book opens up in his mind about the kinds of stories one can tell.

Lessons Learned from Salman Rushdie’s Masterclass Session on Storytelling and Writing.

March 6, 2021 In Masterclass 9 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

‘Happiness writes in white ink on a white page.’ – Henry De Montherlant

Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie teaches his techniques for crafting believable characters, vivid worlds, and spellbinding stories. Salman is a British Indian novelist and Essayist whose work combines magical realism with historical fiction. His story has many connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations, with much of his fiction being set on the Indian subcontinent.

Lessons Learned from Professor Mark A. Stoler’s Great Courses class: The Skeptic’s Guide to American History.

February 27, 2021 In Masterclass 4 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

“Keep the company of those who seek the truth- run from those who have found it.” – Vaclav Havel

Scope:

Everyone recognizes as myths the idea that Columbus was the first to discover America or the story that George Washington admitted cutting down a cherry tree. But very few people realize how much of what we think we know about American history is also mythical and mistaken. As historians often emphasize, many popular beliefs about history in general—and about U.S. history in particular—are myths, either totally false or, at best, only half true.

Moderator

Professor Mark A. Stoler is Professor Emeritus of History at The University of Vermont, where he specialized for almost 40 years in U.S. diplomatic and military history. He received his B.A. from The City College of New York and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Lessons Learned from Roxanne Gay’s Masterclass Session on Writing for Social Change.

February 20, 2021 In Masterclass 6 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Bestselling author, professor, and New York Times columnist Roxane Gay has connected to readers around the world with her unyielding truth-telling and highly personal feminism. In her MasterClass, she teaches you how to own your identity, hone your voice, write about trauma with care and courage, and navigate the publishing industry.

The Age of A.I. Web Series.

February 6, 2021 In Documentary 9 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

The Age of A.I. is an American 8-part science documentary web series narrated and hosted by American actor Robert Downey Jr. Distributed by YouTube Premium in the United States, it first aired on December 18, 2019 and is an 8-part series

I really enjoyed watching the show as it broadened my knowledge of Artificial Intelligence, the use cases, the opportunities, threats, and issues with the AI Revolution,

Matthew Walker Teaches the Science of Better Sleep

January 30, 2021 In Masterclass 9 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

This masterclass session is delivered by Dr. Matthew Walker, the influential British neuroscientist and author of the international bestseller Why We Sleep. As a specialist in the study of slumber and the founder-director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley, he has examined how sleep affects the brain and body. He’s analyzed everything from its role in Alzheimer’s and depression to the ways it can facilitate learning and, potentially, extend our life expectancy. (Indeed, the center is a world leader in studying the effects of sleep on the mind and body.)

Lessons Learned from Edward F. Stuart’s Great Courses Class – Capitalism vs. Socialism: Comparing Economic Systems.

January 15, 2021 In Great Courses 10 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Edward F. Stuart is a Professor Emeritus of Economics at Northeastern Illinois University, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1986. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Oklahoma, specializing in International Economics and Russian and Eastern European Studies.

Capitalism vs. Socialism : Comparing Economic Systems

The course covers the important economic systems in the world today. It also addresses the historical background and big ideas that created the different economic systems.

Lessons Learned from Stephen Curry’s Masterclass Session on Shooting, Ball-Handling, and Scoring.

December 18, 2020 In Masterclass 5 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

High achievers have something in common: they sweat the small stuff, are the hardest worker in the room, deliberately practice, are relentless, and have a compelling vision of what they are trying to create.

Stephen Curry was born in 1988 and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina. Stephen’s father, former NBA player Dell Curry, imbued him with a love for basketball and inspired Stephen to pursue the game professionally. After a meteoric college career with the Davidson Wildcats, Stephen went to the Golden State Warriors as the seventh overall pick in the 2009 draft.

Stephen exceeded expectations for a player of his size, shattering numerous NBA records during his first five years in the league. He scored more three-point field goals during the 2012–13 season than any individual player in league history and broke this record again during the 2014–15 season, working to become one of the most accurate and consistent shooters in the league. He won his first NBA championship in 2015, his second in 2017, his third in 2018 and earned back-to-back Most Valuable Player awards in the 2014–15 and 2015–16 seasons, the latter by unanimous vote—a first in NBA history.

Here are my favourite take-aways from viewing, Stephen Curry’s Masterclass Session on Shooting, Ball-Handling, and Scoring:

Knowable’s How to Launch a Startup with Alexis Ohanian +9 other experts

December 11, 2020 In Masterclass 14 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Knowable’s How To Launch a Startup is a tactical, step-by-step guide designed to take you through the process of launching a high-growth startup — forged from the feats and foibles of the folks who’ve been there. The course takes you through the brass tacks of the startup cycle — an A to Z immersion into the lessons sure to impact every would-be founder.

Course Experts

Alexis Ohanian

Alexis Ohanian is the co-founder of Reddit, one of the world’s most influential websites, and Initialized Capital, a VC firm with investments in companies like Instacart and Coinbase.

Lessons Learned from Kenneth P. Vickery’s Great Courses Class: The African Experience: From “Lucy” to Mandela.

December 4, 2020 In Great Courses 5 Mins Read By Lanre Dahunsi

Africa is bigger than Europe, China, India, Argentina, New Zealand, and the continental United States combined.

To many in the West, Africa has often seemed to be the Lost Continent—“lost” in two senses. The first would be lost from view: Many in the west simply don’t hear much or know much about the place and its past. The second would be “lost” in the sense of hopelessly lost: What people in the west do hear seems overwhelmingly negative, dominated by poverty, disease, disasters, violence, and tyranny.

This imagery itself has a long history in the West, as intellectuals and ordinary folk alike have dismissed Africa as the very repository of “savagery.” Passages from Hume, Hegel, and 20th-century historian Hugh Trevor-Roper illustrate this notion.

History is often described as a drama; if true, it is played out on a stage.

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