Member Impressions

As an adult, coming back to hear an expert, usually someone from the university, talking about something that you started to learn about years and years ago, is a very exciting opportunity to really complete your own education and one of the things that I particularly like is the Osher institute is not about exams, tests, qualifications. None of those things. It's simply about the pleasure of learning and learning from people who are really interested in learning and very interested in the subject that they're talking about.

[Being at Osher] reminds me a little bit of the thrill of starting college and looking through the catalog and seeing all these amazing things, some of which just seemed alien, but all of which seemed potentially interesting. You just get to pick and choose from such a wide array of subject matter… It's a wonderful time of life to be able to really just enjoy yourself and pursue your passions and your interest. Osher gives you a real opportunity to do that.

Osher is my lifeline to learning things that I never got a chance to learn when I was younger or in college. I was so busy with my majors that I just find that I can learn about things that I never had time for before, so it's wonderful… It provides a social aspect to it. You meet people. I've met people that I never would have had an opportunity to meet because they were geographically in a different area or something, but we all come together for the same purpose of learning and it's really an exciting thing when you're in a group with people that are all interested in learning.

You can come to as many classes, it's inexpensive, you're not signing up for one class in a separate building, you've got your own facility, and that's a fantastic part of Osher. You become a community. The people that come frequently know each other well. You have coffee together, you talk about the issues of the day, and they're such interesting people that I learn as much out of class that I do in class. For me, it's been wonderful and I intend to do this as long as I possibly can.

I think the principle excitement [of Osher] is being part of an intellectually vibrant and well informed group of people who have access to some of the best minds in the world here through this program. Whether its people from UC San Diego, the Salk Institute, the Scripps Research Institute, the Scripps Institute of Oceanography…having that access to very, very bright very well informed and very articulate people is very exciting. Being here and a part of this campus and a part, as I’ve said earlier, of the broader universe around this campus is – we are exceptionally fortunate as a group to be able to have that kind of access to these kinds of brilliant minds.

Everything about learning to me is life affirming: it’s positive, it’s optimistic and it’s not just the specific information like how to keep your brain healthy, it’s really just looking forward to learning something new each day.