Whether you’re a high school student or an adult looking to learn more, you might consider going to college. The only problem? There are hundreds of colleges from which to choose. And if that wasn’t hard enough, at each college, there are hundreds of majors in which you can enroll. And once you finally pick that, you still might have to choose from many specializations within the major. We haven’t even mentioned electives yet.
It just may be a bit overwhelming, and that’s why Study Hall was created: to help give prospective students—young and old—all the information they can to help them make a more informed, more confident decision regarding their college education.
What can you expect from Study Hall? Well, quite a bit.
The channel is a collaboration by educational YouTube channel CrashCourse, Arizona State University and YouTube. And its main content is divided up into three respective groupings.
The first, named “How to College,” will hyperlink you to a CrashCourse playlist that’ll take you through all the basics, including how to choose a school, major and specialization, how to pay for college and even how to manage any loan payments after college.
Another series, labeled “Fast Guides,” tries to make the process of picking a major easier. Each video centers on a specific major, such as Nursing, Computer Science and Mass Communications. These videos will inform viewers what kind of classes you’ll likely need to take, what specializations you could study and what kinds of jobs (and salaries) you could get with the degree.
Finally, the channel contains introductory courses via the “College Foundations” series. They’re courses taught by “CrashCourse and ASU educators,” according to the channel’s website, covering topics like “Chemistry,” “Real World College Math” and “Rhetoric and Composition.” The videos allow viewers to “test-drive college level topics that interest [them] most,” according to Study Hall.
And if you’d like to earn actual college credit, Study Hall has a way to do that, too, via its aforementioned website. After paying a fee (at time of posting, $25), users can join the respective College Foundations’ full course, where they will “complete projects, assignments and assessments, have conversations with other learners, and receive feedback from course faculty.”
You’ll only have to actually pay for the ASU college credit when you’re happy with the grade you got in the class. (And, if you’re planning to attend somewhere other than ASU, the credits can transfer to all institutions that will accept them, which Study Hall notes is in “the hundreds.”)
Study Hall offers yet another resource that will prepare people for their college journey, helping them make informed decisions about the university they want to attend and major they want to study. Videos will provide detailed information and instruction on how a prospective student might go about many tasks necessary to college.
The channel further helps to make college credit more easily accessible to everyone. Not all high schools offer the same amount of AP credit or dual credit options, meaning that some college students have to spend more money getting an education in college simply based on the school district to which they were assigned. But with Study Hall, provided students have a good enough Internet connection, they can earn cheaper college credit they otherwise would not have been able to obtain.
There aren’t many concerns here of which a high school or college-aged person would likely be wary. Of course, whenever it comes to education, students should always be guarding their hearts against any false or misleading teaching, or if a teacher posits their personal opinions as fact.
In the preview video for the Real World College Math course, the LGBT flag can be seen hanging on a door as the instructor talks about wanting to make the course accessible to all types of people.
Study Hall mimics its CrashCourse predecessor through the shared vision of wanting to make education accessible to everyone. It also attempts to offer a more tangible way for viewers to benefit from that vision by providing a way for them to earn more affordable college credit. As with anyone submitting to a teacher’s education, prospective students of Study Hall will want to be watchful of teaching that may not be helpful, true or biblical. But generally, Study Hall just might be the thing that’ll help get you started on the process of getting your degree.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
