Ep 11: Ashish Kulkarni on education, educating, learning and maximising soul

In the 11th episode, I’m talking to Ashish Kulkarni – someone who genuinely embodies the title of this show ‘Jack of all knowledge’. Ashish is an assistant professor at the Gokhle Institute of Politics and economics, Pune. He also writes at his blog econ4everybody about economics, ideas, perspectives and everything under the sun. He also hosts a podcast called back to college in which he talks to college graduates about what they would do differently if they were again in college.

Ashish had been a dream guest for the show for a long time and it was very exciting for me to be able to host him, you’ll see shortly why. I talked to Ashish about a lot of things – about how he dropped engineering to study economics, about his passions and philosophy for education and the education system, what it means to be curious and how one can become more curious, why everyone should write, how his ideal university looks like, how he optimises for time and attention in the internet age and finally his sound advice on how to maximise soul.

By far this was the best conversation on my podcast yet, I hope you enjoy! Ashish is on twitter at @shish2727.

Links:

1. Econ4everybody: https://econforeverybody.com/
2. Back to college: https://open.spotify.com/show/250XSqf7sfLJNAg5gL1u5U?si=d0BGsrThSnm5k4xn11CPYQ&dl_branch=1
3. Maximising soul: https://econforeverybody.com/2021/03/08/maximizing_soul/
4. Ashish’s interview on philosophy and future of education part I: https://praneetsinghbutran.substack.com/p/on-the-philosophy-and-future-of-education
5. Ashish’s interview on philosophy and future of education part II: https://praneetsinghbutran.substack.com/p/on-the-philosophy-and-future-of-education-590
6. On Interning: https://econforeverybody.com/2021/03/05/on-interning/
7. Unbundling college: https://econforeverybody.com/2020/07/14/unbundling-college/
8. Long, slow, but inevitable death of classroom: https://econforeverybody.com/2021/01/28/the-long-slow-but-inevitable-death-of-the-classroom/
9. How to optimise twitter as a learning tool: https://divyanshu99.substack.com/p/why-twitter-is-the-single-most-important-21-06-06
10. Marginal Revolution: https://marginalrevolution.com/
11. Conversations with Tyler: https://conversationswithtyler.com/
12. Almost ideal university, part I: https://econforeverybody.com/2021/07/09/the-almost-ideal-university/
13. At Tyler Cowen university, no one would have tenure: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-07-05/what-would-your-fantasy-university-look-like