Inspiration is the engine that moves the world, but what is its fuel? The ideas! And that is precisely what the TED Talks transmit: inspiring ideas.
Do you dare to discover five Ted Talks that could change your life forever? Follow us!
We are witnessing an unprecedented time. For millennia, many discoveries that could have changed the course of mankind history were lost forgotten in a cave, in the workshop of an artisan, or in the court of a palace.
They did not have more significance, because they did not make themselves known. Other artisans, architects, engineers or scientists could not develop those ideas, and they had again and again to “invent the wheel”.
This began to change in the fifteenth century, with the invention of the printing press, which meant a revolution in the transmission of knowledge.
But it would not be until the appearance of internet, and thanks to organizations such as TED, when at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century the inspiring ideas broke all the barriers to spread around the world.
We have made a selection of the best TED Talks for university students. But if you still do not know exactly what TED is, or what the TED Talks are, we are going to explain it briefly below.
What are the TED Talks?
TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a non-profit American organization founded in 1984 by Richard Salu Wurman and Harry Marks. Since 2002, TED is in the hands of The Sapling Foundation.
Its objective? To organize conferences with the goal of “empowering the strength of ideas to change the world“.
But the real revolution of the TED Talks is that, since 2006, they have been broadcasted freely and free of charge through internet, from the organization’s website and they have reached millions and millions of views on platforms such as YouTube or iTunes.
And after this brief introduction to the TED Talks, what matters most is …
What are the best TED Talks for college students?
There are endless conferences or TED Talks for educators, for business people , etc. We have tried to collect the top five of the best TED Talks for university students. Conferences that connect with the needs, the concerns and their vision of the future.
#1. KEN ROBINSON: Do schools kill creativity?
In June 2006, TED Talks gave voice to Ken Robinson in what was probably the most visualized and shared conference on social networks in recent times.
His conference, full of humor and irony against an educational system focused on creating productive workers, asks why the school kills creativity instead of encouraging it.
#2. SIMON SINEK: How great leaders inspire action
What makes out of Apple such a successful company and why are other companies in the technology industry unable to replicate its success? Why did Martin Luther King stand out among all the possible leaders of the civil rights movement in the US? How is a leader born and why is he capable of changing the world?
Simon Sinek has found the pattern that all inspiring leaders follow and has reflected it in a formula called, the “Golden Circle“.
But what does it relates to? It consists in communicating completely opposite to how most do it. One of the best TED Talks for students who are preparing themselves to be tomorrow’s future leaders.
#3. ANGELA LEE: Grit: the power of passion and perseverence
Having a prodigious mind or a high IQ is no guarantee of academic success. Something more is needed, related to hard work.
Angela Lee studies how factors as difficult to measure as perseverance can be used to predict the academic success of students. Don´t miss it!
#4. TIM URBAN: Inside the mind of a master procrastinator
And if something is incompatible with hard work is procrastination. In the previous post we saw how procrastination could become a mortal enemy of an university student.
In one of the TED Talks you will laugh and feel identified with the anecdotes that Tim Urban tells with great insight. Procrastination, however, is more serious than you can imagine and among the constant distractions of the digital (and also the physical) world, time runs away preventing us from achieving our goals.
Tim will make you think about, if it is really worth postponing your tasks.
#5. SHAWN ACHOR: The happy secret to better work
Although Angela Lee’s TED Talk hits the nail on the head when it places the key to success in perseverance and hard work, you also have to find a place for happiness.
Shawn Achor, a Harvard psychologist and CEO of the consultancy Good Think Inc., is one of the greatest exponents of positive psychology. In this TED Talk, Achor exposes, with some touches of humor, the relationship between happiness and productivity.
Who said that the academic or business striving conflicts with enjoying, having fun and being happy …? In fact, happiness increases performance and profitability.
So far with the best TED Talks for university students. We are sure that in some of them there are ideas that will change your future forever.
And if you come to study to Madrid, check out our flats for students in Madrid. In them you will find the environment of inspiration you need to guide you towards academic and professional success.
Take the reins of your future!