I recently started seeing the images above from CFNC.org (College Foundation of North Carolina) on billboards in North Carolina.  "College works" is the slogan across all of the billboards.   It seems the discussion about college is changing.  In the past most of CFNC's adds have focus on letting students know that college is more accessible than they think.  They have always advertised the importance of college as well, but I think these billboards point at a subtle but important shift.  The discussion around college seems to be changing and apparently CFNC's ad department agrees. The question these billboards are trying to address is does college work?  If I want a good job do I need to go to college?  Will going to college help me earn more money?  Will going to college make my life better? When I went to college this was not a question that needed to be answered.  The questions were: Can I afford to go to college?  Can I get accepted into college?  I know college is important but can I survive four more years of classes? This is just an example of what I have seen and heard in other places.  The discussion around college is changing.  "Does college work?" is no longer a crazy question.  For many students the answer is still yes, but the fact that many students feel they now need to answer this question is an interesting shift in perspective. I personally feel this change in perspective will be good for education.  It will push colleges to provide even more value to their students.  Colleges don't want to be answering this question.  They will try their hardest to take the question off the table. The question is can they put the cat back in the bag?  College works?

RATING //  98 > Highly recommended for high school students, college students and young professionals.

I recently set a personal target of successfully completing a marathon in under 3 hours with less than 3 hours of training per week (including cross training) before I turn 31.  Because of this I am calling it the 3/three/30 marathon training plan.  Below is my first training plan based on my initial research.

With my [Spotlight] posts I am planning on highlighting new and important resources, groups, and individuals in the public and personal education fields. 

I figured the best place to start would be the Khan Academy.  The Khan Academy is at the center of push to revolution traditional K-12 education throughout the world.

What Is The Khan Academy?

 I have a thesis that the education industry will drastically change over the next 10-20 years.

Just look at those fun little icons many of us windows office workers have come to love.  I know the Spider Solitaire and Minesweeper icons are kinda tough looking, but they are tough in a "fun" way.  That's why the sucker punch they gave me was so unexpected.  I mean they are just a nice little games to give me a break when my brain is a little tired or when I need a break before starting the next project.  How could it turn out like this?

I noticed this after winning a quick game of FreeCell...

Can you train for a marathon with less than 3 hours of training a week?

That was the question that has me training for a marathon.  My wife and I recently had our first child (he is currently 4 1/2 months old).  Besides daily walks with my dog I had not done any serious exercise for about 4 months.  I figured it was time to get back in an exercise routine.

The problem is that having a kid completely kills your free time.  After staring at my schedule for a couple of days and talking with my wife I figured I could carve out exercise time 6 days a week if I kept the workouts, including warm up and cool down, below 30 minutes.

I am a competitive person and do not enjoy working out just for the sake of working out (I need goals).  So after carving out some time on my schedule the next question was, what should I train for?  Should I sign up for a 10K, go for a personal best in a mile race, or something else?  Which brought me back to something  I had been pondering for a little while.  Can you post a good time in a marathon with a low mileage training program?  And more specifically could I train for a marathon with less than 3 hours of training a week?