Renaissance Man

By Dr. Marciene Mattleman

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - For the last four years, Jeremy Gleick, a sophomore at the University of California, Los Angeles, has spent an hour daily learning at night when other students are probably having fun.

Gleick started this routine as a high school junior doing college applications and asking himself, "Why are we here and to what end?" He concluded that the answer was "learning." He has just passed his one thousandth day and has missed only once!

School books and novels are not permitted. Gleick's topics, usually free from MIT or Stanford or the Internet, have been as diverse as astrophysics and the Zulu. For 39 days, he learned how to do card tricks, spent many days on the Civil War and 41 on a tutorial about hypnosis. All are recorded on a spreadsheet.

The latest New York Times "Education Life," supplement calls Gleick a Renaissance man and suggests his nightly routine as another way to learn.