JetBlue, Virgin Atlantic Now Stream College Course Lectures 30,000 Feet In The Air

(John Kittelsrud)

Each day there a thousands of opportunities for you to expand your mind. And that includes while you’re essentially held captive in a seat with little leg room, flying 30,000 feet in the air. No, we’re not talking about the usual flight safety and etiquette lessons shoved down our throats while traveling, we’re talking about JetBlue and Virgin Atlantic’s newly launched initiative to stream college course lectures during flights.

TIME reports that the two airlines have begun providing travelers with complimentary audio and video of select college lectures in addition to the typical inflight entertainment lineups.

While the new entertainment options might teach us a thing or two we didn’t know, don’t expect the courses to go toward a degree of any kind.

The new offerings started back in December for JetBlue, which streams portions of 10 recorded lectures via Coursera, a platform for open online classes.

Courses shown on JetBlue flights include marketing classes from University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, a Brown University archeology class, and an introduction to guitar and rhythm from the Berklee School of Music.

The airline is also using a company called Rouxbe to stream video cooking lessons such as “How to brine meats” and “How to read labels on chocolate.”

More recently Virgin Atlantic joined the business of sculpting minds by offering audio and video from Great Courses, a series of lectures from well-known professors.

Available videos include “The Inexplicable Universe: Unsolved Mysteries,” by Cosmos host and director of the Hayden Planetarium, Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Both JetBlue and Virgin Atlantic say they plan to rotate in new lectures every month or two.

Travel blogger Gary Leff tells TIME that the new education entertainment offerings will likely be a welcome surprise for passengers.

“People seem to like the serendipity” of unexpected audio and videos on long flights, he says.

Even if you aren’t interested in learning any new subjects on your next flight, the courses might help lull you to sleep, you know, like they do for actual college students from time to time.

These Airlines are Offering In-Flight College Classes [TIME]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist