History of Online Education and What's Next w/ Sahil Khoja (CEO of Students Who Design)

NOTE: The following transcript was generated by robots who don't always understand English so well. I apologize for the grammatical errors.

Students Who Design Interview

Ish: [00:00:00] What's up everybody? My name is Ish and I am the founder of virtually, and this is the virtually podcast where we discuss everything online education, including higher ed, online trade schools, bootcamps, ISA, , and so much more. This week's conversation was with Sahil kosha, the founder of students who design, we talked about the origins of online education going all the way back to 2005 and then walked up our way to modern day.

[00:00:26] It was genuinely fun to reflect on where we've been and think critically about where we're going, especially given the recent outbreak of coven 19 and the sudden spike of unemployment all around the world. This conversation was more relevant than ever, and I had a blast. I hope you enjoy as well.

[00:00:42] hey, everyone! Uh, my name is ish, uh, founder and CEO of virtually, and I am joined by Sahil Khoja, uh, the founder of students who design, uh, so sigh. How would you. Introduce yourself, 

[00:00:54] Sahil: [00:00:54] yeah, sure. Uh, yeah, so my name is Sal Hill, like it's pronounced, like I saw a Hill. I'm one of the cofounders of students who designed, we first started off as a podcast just trying to help people break into the design industry. That has now evolved into a, uh, a online course, uh, and a mentorship program.

[00:01:09] So we, we help people get their first internship or job in product design, and we especially help those people who come from underrepresented backgrounds or unconventional backgrounds.

[00:01:19]Ish: [00:01:19] Awesome. And for context, for anybody listening to this in the future, at the time we're recording this, we're amidst, uh, the coronavirus Cova 19 epidemic. We're like in the thick of it right now. Uh, schools all across the country started closing right around mid March. And a lot of universities have let out as well.

[00:01:39] And, uh, it is currently April six. And so we have no idea how much longer kind of, uh, quarantining and  social distancing is going to go on for. And gonna talk a lot more about students with design, but real quick right now, I'm curious, how has COVID 19 effected students who design, I guess one, it's virtual.

[00:02:00] It's online. So I imagine in that respect it hasn't impacted too much, but what about in terms of inbound interests? Have you seen a spike in interest lower? What's going on.

[00:02:09] Sahil: [00:02:09] Yeah. Um, I think there's a couple of things. So one is we. In January, I had launched a free three week course, uh, that was virtual online, but it was still instructor led. And you got feedback and as soon as the schools were like canceled and let out to go home, people were like, Hey, I'm going to be late.

[00:02:25] Like I have a lot of like an assignment submissions. I'm gonna, it's gonna be hard for me to participate. And we kinda sense that like this is going to be, this is pretty a pretty crazy time for everyone. And for them to commit to a three week course with deadlines and all that kind of stuff. It just doesn't make sense right now.

[00:02:39] So we decided to do, we were actually going to have a cohort in March and April, so what we decided to do is just give everyone access to the course. Um, the other part of it is that our bandwidth was limited because we all work full time jobs while doing students who design. So now we're also transitioning to working from home and being kind of everywhere.

[00:02:57] So it's hard for us to be devoted to the students, uh, for a free three week course. So what we did is we essentially said, if you submit. The assignments and you've made your whole case study, send it to us and we'll try to get feedback, but like nothing's really promised, given everything that's going on.

[00:03:11] And the other side of it is for our mentees, it's become harder for them to find jobs because now you know people are getting laid off, like there's hiring freezes, and especially for new grads, because like, you know, that's likely who you're not trying to hire for. If you're hiring it all right now. So I think in two ways it's been like that.

[00:03:29] So in terms of us being our bandwidth and then our mentees ability to find jobs has been difficult. Uh, and I mentioned like a spike, and that's definitely happened where I think it was last, uh, last Wednesday we released a, uh. A blog post with FEMA about how to set up an online design classroom and we saw this huge spike in applications.

[00:03:47] I think we're at like 700 something now for our three week course. Um, which is cool, but it's hard cause like we don't know how to support all these people and it makes sense. Like everyone says during a recession, the best thing to do is like go back to school because like, you don't want to get into the job market.

[00:04:01]Um. And it seems like that makes sense. Like everyone wants to like, use this time to like get better at a skill or learn something new. Like I've had friends texting me for some reason, they're like, Hey, do you know, like, where I can learn how to code? Um, and you know, like direct them to different places.

[00:04:13] But I think that's what people are trying to do is just try to upskill themselves in this time. But the issue is, is like the market demand isn't as strong as it used to be, especially for something that like design, which is already a bit more constrained if you're not senior. Um, so that's been kind of what we've seen in the last six to eight weeks.

[00:04:30] Ish: [00:04:30] Got it. Got it. And so it looks like a lot of people given their, you know, now a lot of people have a lot of free time. They're investing in their education and even though they know that they're maybe not going to be able to get work right now, they're hoping that this is going to pay off.

[00:04:44] One's kind of, the quarantine is over and kind of companies start ramping up their hiring again.

[00:04:50] Sahil: [00:04:50] Yeah.

[00:04:51] Ish: [00:04:51] Yeah. Awesome. Well, Hey, I want to dive really deep into students who design, but that's, we can kind of hold off for a little bit real quick. I kind of want to go kind of walk down memory lane and talk about where online education was all the way back in, I think 2005.

[00:05:06] And I think that's when like YouTube was founded, right. And, uh, my earliest kind of memory of

[00:05:13]

[00:05:13] education on YouTube was just like  very lightweight. Like people uploading videos, instructional videos, how tos about, you know, just random topics. I know for me it was, I remember the first instructional YouTube video I'd ever watched was how to solve a Rubik's cube.

[00:05:27] And that's, that's how I learned, uh, how to solve a Rubik's cube. And I guess that was, I thought the inception of kind of online education. I know there was blogging before, but in terms of like video education, that's really where it started. Uh, what are your memories of, I guess, YouTube when it was originally, founded and I guess specifically the education side of it.

[00:05:48] Sahil: [00:05:48] Yeah. I think for me, YouTube is really big in high school where like. Uh, things like math and science didn't come natural to me, so I really went to YouTube to figure out what the hell is going on. Uh, especially for chemistry, I remember like everything for Khan Academy, like I would like, he taught me chemistry, everythin...