An Educated Guest

S1 E7 | High Quality, Low Cost: Impact of a MOOC-based degree program


Guest: Zvi Galil, Creator of the Online Master of Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Computing

Todd Zipper, EVP and GM of Wiley University Services and Talent Development, welcomes Zvi Galil, creator of the Online Master of Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Computing. Todd and Zvi discuss the launch of this program in 2014, which is regarded as the first affordable, fully online MOOC-based master’s degree in the United States. Zvi disputes the premises that we should be afraid of online, and that in-person teaching is superior. Listen to their conversation on your favorite podcast platform.

Topics Discussed:

  • The impact of the first MOOC-based degree at Georgia Tech, and how it opened-up a larger, global market
  • Opportunities for universities to deliver online degrees at a fraction of the cost and to a larger student population
  • The expansion of high-quality and low-cost MOOC-based degrees into the undergraduate realm
  • How success was driven through the board of trustees, critical faculty, and an investment from a corporation

Guest Bio

Zvi Galil is the creator of the Online Master of Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Computing, who The Wall Street Journal dubbed “The man who made online college work.” Born in Tel Aviv, Israel, he earned BS and MS degrees in Applied Mathematics from Tel Aviv University, both summa cum laude. Zvi later obtained a PhD in Computer Science from Cornell University.

In 1982, he joined the faculty of Columbia University, served as the chair of the Computer Science Department in 1989-1994, and became dean of The Fu Foundation School of Engineering & Applied Science in 1995-2007. In 2007, he returned to Tel Aviv University to serve as president. Zvi then took over as the third John P. Imlay Jr. Dean of Computing at Georgia Tech from July 2010 through June 2019.

He has written over 200 scientific papers, edited five books, and has given more than 150 lectures in 20 countries. Zvi has served as editor in chief of two journals and as the chief computer science adviser in the United States to the Oxford University Press. Recently, he was named one of the 10 most influential computer scientists in the last decade by Academic Influence.



Podcast Transcript

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Speaker 1:
You’re listening to An Educated Guest, a podcast that brings together great minds in higher-ed to delve deeper into the innovations and trends guiding the future of education and careers. Hosted by the president of Wiley Education Services, Todd Zipper.

Todd Zipper:
Hello, this is Todd Zipper and I am the host of An Educated Guest. On today’s show, I speak with Zvi Galil where the Wall Street Journal dubbed, the man who made online college work. Zvi began the Online Master of Science in Computer Science at Georgia Tech in 2014 which is regarded as the first affordable, fully online masters degree in the United States. He was recently named one of the 10 most influential computer scientists in the last decade by academic influence. A few highlights from our discussion. The first MOOC-based degree at Georgia Tech opened up a larger market than would have existed without it on a global basis. Second, MOOC-based degrees, which can be high quality and low cost in that scale can deliver on the promise. Part of the vision is to extend this into the undergraduate realm. Third, online degrees from elite universities can be delivered at a fraction of the cost and to a large number of people.

Todd Zipper: And lastly, part of the success was getting buy-in from the Board of Trustees and the critical faculty, as well as investing from a corporation that didn’t have a stated upside. Hello Zvi, thank you for joining here today on An Educated Guest. I know you have spoken about this topic many times before at Harvard, through Keynotes and other mediums, and you recently told Forbes that the Online Master of Science in Computer Science that you launched at Georgia Tech is the biggest thing you’ve done in your life. I’m just so excited to talk to you today. I recently read a book called Zero to One by Peter Thiel. The premise of the book is to focus on businesses that create something new as opposed to copying things that already work.

Todd Zipper: I think you and your team have done such that in creating a great program from an elite university, that is about the 10th of the cost of a traditional Masters of Computer Science. For our podcast listeners, let’s assume they do not have all the background on your transformational work here. Please tell us more about how and why you started the OMSCS at Georgia Tech and what you did from there?

Zvi Galil: To start with, for some times, I have been concerned about the cost of higher education especially after several years ago. Also, about the debt incurred by many of the students, especially in college, when it passed the one trillion mark because now it’s approaching two trillions. But I was only a Dean and the issue of tuition, of how much people pay and how do they get the financial aid was above my pay grade. It was at the level of a president of Board of Trustees or Board of Regions in the case of that university, because then it’s a university system of 20 something universities in Georgia. But then an opportunity came up for me to possibly do something about it. Before I say the how, I’ll give you a one or two minutes of history. Distance learning existed since the 60s of the last century, 1960s. Online learning existed since the 90s, immediately a year or two after the internet arrived and online degrees existed since then. There were, but however, usually of a mediocre quality.

Zvi Galil: It was essentially that somebody videotaped the class and people can watch it online with minimal student support and with the full tuition. Then in late 2011, the MOOCs appeared. Actually, MOOCs appeared in 2008, the term was [calling 00:04:13] then but the initial MOOCs… Well, not exactly MOOCs, but M in the MOOCs is massive, Massive Open Online Courses, though they’re not exactly massive. What we know today as MOOCs appeared in late 2011. There were three courses from Stanford. The first was Artificial Intelligence by Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig. We have 60,000 students, but immediately there were two other courses by Andrew Ng and by Jennifer Widom. Three courses from Stanford.
Zvi Galil: Then in the early 2012, two companies were started, Sebastian Thrun started Udacity and Daphne Koller and Peter Ng started Coursera, and then the MOOCs proliferated. Actually in New York times, I think it was Thomas Friedman, who called 2012 the year of the MOOC, justifiably. In September 2012, Sebastian Thrun visited me and he told me, “Zvi, how about doing a MOOC-like degree for $1,000?” By the way, at that time, all the MOOCs were free. That was the culture. All the MOOCs were free, which by the way, was in some sense also a disadvantage because students are not exactly serious when they don’t pay anything.

Zvi Galil: I told him, “Sebastian, I think…” I’m pretty good with numbers and I told him that $1,000 won’t do. I said, “Probably $4,000 will do.” Then later, in a little bit when I got to our administration, they were a little cautious and they went for $6,600 and justifiably so. I’m not criticizing them but that was a smart thing to do because of course, if you want to create a program with services, you cannot do it for free, okay? I was only the Dean and I believe in faculty governance and a Dean, even a president, cannot usually do or decide what the faculty will do. I cannot tell them, “Tomorrow, you will do X.” Then we laugh and he moved her out of the office. This is not how university works. They have to want to do it. I created a task force about close to 10 faculty members.

Zvi Galil: It took a little bit because I knew they liked MOOCs, however, they were not going to decide it. I told the faculty, “If you don’t want to do it, we don’t do it. You have to want to do it.” And the task force created the blueprint and had several town hall meetings. I came, Sebastian came, me and my right hand man which is my Executive Senior Associate Dean, who is now my successor, Charles Isbell did not go to the meeting of the task force. Only when invited or lead to answer questions and I basically said, “If you don’t want it, we won’t do it.” Over six months, they created the blueprints, decided all sorts of things, how much faculty will get and there’re all sorts of issues to settle. They brought it to a vote to the faculty, 75% of the faculty voted for 25% voted against.

Zvi Galil: Then you needed the approval by Georgia Tech Institute, then by the trustees which is called Boards of Regions and that was two months later. In May 2013 we got approval and then we went to work and created the first five courses. In January 2014 we started OMSCS. OMSCS to remind you is Online MS, Master of Science degree in Computer Science, OMSCS. It started in January 2014 with 380 students and five courses.

Todd Zipper: And what is it today?

Zvi Galil: In the screen, we had slightly over 11,000 students and there were 51 courses. So far, 5,000 students, a little over 5,200 or 5,300 students graduated.

Todd Zipper: Is it fair to say that most of these students would have never come to a campus-based program?

Zvi Galil: The Harvard group did the research on OMSCS and they talked to the first students from two or three years and survey them. The vast majority would not do it without us, without these kind of education. Either the tuition was way too high or they didn’t live in a university town, and then families, their jobs, they were not ready to get relocate. They tell me… I’ve traveled all over the world. I gave dozens of OMSCS talks over a dozen countries and I meet them and they thank me, and they say to me, “I wouldn’t do it otherwise.”

Todd Zipper: I think there’s a couple of points I want to highlight. First is that you not only innovated on tuition, you took a risk where MOOCs at the time were growing but their completion rates were very questionable, so you had to still live by the standard, a high standard of a degree and all the things that come from that, that Georgia Tech would use. The other thing that you did that I want to get your perspective on is you partnered with a corporation, AT&T. We see donors fund colleges and schools of business and technology, but the way you funded this through AT&T is also a pretty unique innovation.

Zvi Galil: We recognize the fact that to produce a really high quality MOOC, a course like this initially costs us $300,000. It’s now about $100,000, still expensive. It’s like producing a small movie with the course design there, the staff, you edit it several times and you take out pieces. It takes full semester, and suddenly the tuition was low, the numbers is very low and we needed help. Now, Georgia Tech is a state university with very low endowment. However, the MIT, they could fund the edX. I mentioned Coursera and Udacity, edX appears several months later. They just put immediately $60 million with edX, okay? Even not for doing any degree, okay? [inaudible 00:11:00] cannot do it. That was very important to have, and then they recommend others with such a program to find a donor and Sebastian and I went to the CEO and chair of AT&T, Randall Stephenson on… I remember the day, Friday, January 11, 2013. On Monday, he gave us $2 million and then later, I went to him again, just by myself. He gave us another $2 million.

Zvi Galil: This was crucial. We even didn’t appreciate it. You learned and appreciate it when it happens or you’ll realize it later. As it was sad, we’d be willing to break all the time. We didn’t need money from Georgia Tech, nobody had to invest. That was the investment. This was critical because of the novelty, there was always a danger that the 25% or the all the naysayers would have the upper hand. Plus, you can develop much fewer courses so you can grow. Five courses is not enough for a degree. This was unbelievable.

Todd Zipper: Did AT&T get to hire the graduates? What was their…

Zvi Galil: AT&T did not. They send their employees but they still pay the tuition. Tuition is low, but they still. They didn’t get any break in admission criteria. They didn’t get any break. Nobody looked at where they came from. They didn’t ask and didn’t get any break. Initially, Sebastian saw that maybe Udacity, even AT&T, will influence the curriculum. Faculty didn’t agree to this. We didn’t argue. We just said, “No.” It was crucial and I will always be thankful to… Especially to Randall Stephenson, is in number two of AT&T Blaze.

Todd Zipper: Other schools have tried to launch other MOOC-based degrees, which is essentially symbolized by a top 200 university brand, a lower cost than is… A much lower cost than is traditionally offered on campus and yet we don’t see this proliferation of this, the success story of Georgia Tech.

Zvi Galil: Well first, it has to some extent. I actually… In my recent interviews, I mentioned 30 universities with 40 programs, but there is a company called Class Central which is the most knowledgeable about online and MOOC-based learning. Actually the [radio 00:13:37] number is 72. So, that’s 72 programs that are much more affordable, okay? And also MOOC-based. The MOOC-based is the piece that enables the cost to be large and that’s why we need the Udacity initially.

Todd Zipper: Do you imagine that? And I think the early promise of MOOCs was to bring the cost of education down, right? Especially at the undergraduate level. Do you see a point where universities like Georgia Tech use this MOOC-based platform to go into the undergraduate courses and figure out ways to cut that cost a lot?

Zvi Galil: I have a vision and the decisions haven’t been made. This is my personal view. It’s not a view of anybody in Georgia Tech, but first I’ll tell you. In 2017, I already decided to move into undergraduates. We offered the first basic course in the undergraduate program which is called Introduction to Computing using Python. Phyton, this is the current programming language that every beginner learns and this is the course most popular in what we offer because first of all, every students except when they have AP, take it plus many other. All of Georgia Tech has to take intro to computing one way or another and many of them take these course. Every semester there’re between 300 and 400 students in the course and what happened is we offered it online, a little more than half took it online while the other half took it in class.

Zvi Galil: The survey showed that actually they liked online better. Everything was comparable, but a little bit higher the online because again, I little bit cheated. The teacher was David Joiner, the best teacher we have. Not everybody is a terrific teacher, but he did fantastic job. So, the idea is to test the water and it was very successful and see, since 2017, we have it online. In 2019, we introduced two more undergraduate courses but then there was a pandemic and everybody moved to online. Here is my vision. It’s my dream and I hope very much it will happen. We actually prove that this OMSCS, it was an experiment and the experiment proved that a very highly ranked program can produce online MOOC- based program of the highest quality. There is no difference. Same exams, same requirements, same performance and everything. No discounts, only the price.

Zvi Galil: And what I hope here is that, that can be used in college to actually lower the cost of college and I’ll explain exactly how. First of all, I’m for the real college so I’m not in any way for abolishing college and moving entirely to online. College performs many tasks and it has many roles and it’s important, but in my vision, up to one third of the courses that students can take in college can be taken online and usually not when he is on college camp. For example, the very introductory courses, they can take violin high school or while at home in a year after high school while working on some job. They can take some introductory courses, okay? That’s the intro courses. In the middle of the study, some students go on internships, some students go on co-ops and many go on some of vacation.

Zvi Galil: They can take courses online there, okay? Also, not being on campus and in the end, they can complete the degree already on the job, taking online the final courses. For example, in the case of Georgia Tech OMSCS courses, many of them can count as advanced undergraduate courses. In many universities, the advanced courses are also masters courses. So, up to a third of the classes, they can take online and not on campus, and here comes the big question. Will university lower the price for online when they are not on campus? They need not lose financially because if it is planned accordingly, they have a place in the classrooms and domes to most students. They can always feel the domes in the classroom as they used before. The amount they will get from full tuition will not be held.

Todd Zipper: Zvi, let me distinguish between a few things. There’s the on-campus experience in that course, there is online education that we can define a couple of different ways. One is for, like you said, the last 20 or 30 years, there’s probably thousands of accredited online degree programs that are typically similar costs to an on-campus option, but for typically working adults. Then there is the MOOC-based degree, which again, it’s the same diploma that someone gets but the difference here is that one is, like you said, massive. One is going to have 10,000 students in a particular program or maybe hundreds in a particular course, and the cost is going to be lower versus the traditional online experience, Zoom University and what happened on the pandemic made everything online which also throws everything to a wrench. So, I’d like you to help dive into the OMSCS and help us understand why that MOOC degree, that online degree is different? How it’s different than maybe, a traditional online degree that is being… Or maybe it isn’t different?

Zvi Galil: It is not. They should charge less. I’m not sure I’m telling or I’m not telling them how in the world they should charge less.

Todd Zipper: So, you all figured and I think a lot of it had to do with this bottoms up analysis. It started with, “Let’s charge $1,000,” and then you really put forth the bare bones of what you actually need to do to teach the course, build the course and then teach the course, service the course. I know there were and are innovations of this program, such as using IBM’s Watson Technology to answer questions in an artificial intelligence way. Can you talk about some of those support services and other things you had to do to create scale? Quality at scale, I should say.

Zvi Galil: There are two issues. First, the technology, but the real, crucial technology was the platform that we started with Udacity. That was [Lakosha 00:20:47]. The other one help us facilitate it. By the way, I want to say one word about the cost. Probably, $7,000 or $8,000 is too low. It’s based on the fact that we already have the faculty and they’re already getting paid and they’re getting extra. So probably, it’s needed to be higher and in fact, all of our 70 something followers, including the two Georgia Tech is about $10,000. For example, the first follower was iMBA from Illinois, $22,000 of iMBA which is still a quarter over the price but it’s not as cheap. And one day, if you do it in… You have to price it correctly. We started with the MOOCs that cost nothing, so then Sebastian said $1,000 and that was the culture then.

Zvi Galil: Then we did a little more and Isbell born, but because of large number when you… I don’t know if you know, but if you’re good in maths, when you multiply small number by a very large number, you still get a large number. I think the net, that means all the tuition minus all the expenses, if the net income was $25 million this year or next year. It’s non-negotiable.

Todd Zipper: Right.

Zvi Galil: Which is nice and what I recommend to everybody is experiment, experiment, experiment. One of the things that we learned to measure things, one is that there is this huge, possibly huge underserved population that needs it and the second one is never say never. I just say the oops, but never say never. If you don’t try it, you don’t know. Don’t say, “You cannot do this,” or “Here, face-to-face is crucial,” because A, you first try it, and B, even if it’s not great, technology improves all the time.

Zvi Galil: Now on the way, we also try to find technologies that help us. One of them is Jill Watson who initially used Watson technology, and that’s why her name is Watson, but I’m not sure if it uses it anymore, but it uses AI to answer questions. But not all… For the moment, people are misled, not that deep technical questions but other questions of the bureaucracy. When is the exam and what do I need to know? Things that are written somewhere, but students don’t read and it’s very easily answered and it has a 90% precision. When I’m working on a version who is helping with technical problems which is much more challenging, so then universal. We also developed, and I don’t want to get into the details of technology for cheating. Though cheating, in face-to-face there was cheating as well.

Zvi Galil: It’s not only online, but online is somewhat easier. We developed some AI technology to prevent cheating, to recognize copying and to prevent the outsourcing. There’s industry, I think in India, that does all sorts of exempts and problem set and another one similar for Piazza. Piazza is a platform for student discussion but many students ask the same question. The system identifies questions already asked to make it more efficient and Gelato now uses it, too. Simply to economize, to be more efficient in finding solution to questions that the same question was asked.

Todd Zipper: The last year and a half has thrusted the entire industry online effectively, sometimes not so nicely talked about in terms of Zoom University and that quality experience, which I think is very different than a high quality program or what you’re talking about at Georgia Tech. How do you think sentiment has changed towards online? Do you think that the moment is now to pursue more of these opportunities like what you’ve designed at Georgia Tech?

Zvi Galil: It’s mixed. The experience of suddenly, with no preparation, moving to online are not exactly smooth. By the way, Georgia Tech people, we already have 54 courses and we advise other places what to do and how to do. We offer our advice to a number of places. Some people, those who had really bad experience [inaudible 00:25:15], however many were exposed to it and then can see the advantages. I believe online will be used in much broader way. There are many ways to use it. One is hybrid. Hybrid is that the course itself, the content is online, but then the classroom is used to break them to relatively smaller groups to have discussions and to elaborate on the deep or problematical challenging points in the class. That’s the hybrid version.

Zvi Galil: Basically, my colleague, Charles Isbell was the Dean, but the main guy is David Joiner that I mentioned also. There was a booklet that is coming out in September that is called the Distributed Classrooms. All sorts of modes, they can teach online. They actually consider quite a number. There is a matrix, so it’s several different ways that online can be used and they explore on many of them. I believe yes, it will be used more and I believe also for the college, this is my vision. American universities are the best in the world. Actually, Jonathan Cole was a friend who was Provost at Columbia. When I was there, I wrote two books about it. They are the best university. The research in these universities is fantastic. They also do a very good teaching job, except the best universities teach my note, number of students. I think, it was online and if they go this way, they could fulfill their mission much better.

Todd Zipper: That’s a good segue to talk a little bit more about the MOOCs sector, where the MOOCs, if you listen to Coursera’s numbers, they’re talking about tens of million, 70 million or something like that. EdX, 35 million users there they’re teaching. These are the mostly US brands in the world, teaching students something, right? It’s a course, but what we know is we’ve got completion rates that are questionable, so to compare that number to, like you just said, the actual students that are going through a curated degree experience at the undergrad or the graduate level is very different. I’d love to get your thoughts, especially, some news that came out a few weeks back that to U… acquired edX. Essentially, I mean, Udacity is less of a MOOC is my understanding today. You essentially had the major MOOC platforms residing in a for-profit status, but still partnering with the best universities of the world. Beyond the MOOC degree that we’re talking about here, how do you see the MOOC experience evolving in the next several years?

Zvi Galil: MOOCs have their place with… I’m not sure if it’s still single digit. It used to be single digits completion rates. It might be 12% now, so it might not be single digit and I didn’t follow the numbers. The head of the place, you really need very disciplined people to take them and actually when you pay and there’s payment for certificates, but it’s not clear if the certificates are well [inaudible 00:28:27] anything. They look like the certificate of the dentist on the wall, but I’m not sure who gives them such a value. Taking it for degree and paying for it, make students much more serious. MOOCs will exist and there will be some people… You don’t need the degree if you are very disciplined and you wanted just to know the material. That’s okay. Somebody takes it, if he suddenly has a difficulty at work, in the family and he drops out. That’s what happens.

Zvi Galil: They don’t finish. Actually initially, it was single digits and less than half started the MOOC. They just register. They didn’t download the first lecture. I believe there is a need for the MOOCs though… By the way, all of our courses are offered as free MOOCs also but then without student services, which is a point that if they want, they can get it back to without exams. Nobody grades them, nobody… They just take it as MOOCs. They’re all available, there are many of those. If they have the willpower and perseverance to finish them okay, it can be very useful.

Todd Zipper: Yeah, it sounds like them free MOOC is like a dynamic textbook.

Zvi Galil: Yes. I was describing it as a textbook. It’s exactly like textbooks. And by the way, Sir John Daniel, who was the vice chancellor of the Open University, which is the largest university and does a lot of online and also MOOCs. He said already seven years ago or whatever, about six to seven years ago that, “MOOCs without credentials, a second rate education to the unwashed masses.” I wouldn’t say it like this. You understand what it meant?

Todd Zipper: Yes.

Zvi Galil: Credentials. This was the main part that was missing in the books.

Todd Zipper: Right. I mean, and the employers still value that as much as they’re trying to get more to short courses and skill-based learning, they still need that credential. How do you think about success for these MOOC degrees? Because I know Georgia Tech recently launched or in the last couple of years, other MOOC degrees, [crosstalk 00:30:36] two more?

Zvi Galil: Two more. One in analytics and one in cybersecurity.

Todd Zipper: Can you imagine that, you mentioned the iMBA at Illinois, can this hit any subject area? I mean, I know you are focused on technology but-

Zvi Galil: As I’ve said, “You don’t know if you don’t do it.”

Todd Zipper: Right.

Zvi Galil: The second one was not in computer science. Computer science is natural and technology is from there, so computer science is more affluent with the technology… Listen, natural is the obvious place to start. This other thing is iMBA and were 11,000, but both are analytics. The iMBA have 4,500 students, so then it’s small either.

Todd Zipper: Right.

Zvi Galil: The Cybil is more recent. It’s 2019, and it has about close to a thousand. It is competition because you can also take our OMSCS with specialization in cybersecurity. Some people prefer it to our OMSCS because they get other qualifications and they can do other things. Though, Cybil is very hard. Cybil is the hardest parts of computer science which is the hardest field, period.

Todd Zipper: As we get towards wrapping up, are there any other innovations that you’re pursuing or that you’re seeing in the market that are worth attention and talking about today?

Zvi Galil: As you see, I’m less focused on innovation and more on getting it into the normal way of operations of universities which is, cannot report to you that it hasn’t been happened yet and I’ll be pushing it up, now I’m not even a Dean. I hope Georgia Tech will, and this needs planning, so what they call integrated methods that you have in the college when you have passed online, it’s challenging, but it can be planned. We can do it. Basically, all the online tuition which is small, but multiplied by large number will be extra because the normal pain will be the same, because more people could pass through the university if some of the students and if some of the time are not on campus. I’m not that focused on specific innovation that will come and it’s wonderful like Jill or the Piazza or the cheating, though to bring them the innovation here is have university do it in the 21st century.

Zvi Galil: Because as I said in one of my interviews, universities are the second most conservative institution after the Catholic church. Faculty and I… I’m all for faculty governance, but faculty can be very liberal in the voting record, but when you touch them, they are very conservative that against almost any change, even if they’re liberal, even if the change look like it will make their life better because they already suspect that behind it, there is something that will take advantage of them and not always wrong. So they’re against change and this might have been my biggest achievement to get the [bide 00:33:46], okay? That’s what everybody asks me when I go and give this talk. “How did you do that?” And I’m not sure I know how they did it.

Todd Zipper: Well, the time was right for sure. I’m going to wrap up here. I asked this of all my guests. It’s one of our core values at Wiley is learning champion. We love education. We all have learning champions and I would love to know who has been a learning champion for you and how has that person helped you in your life?

Zvi Galil: It’s my father. My father was a professor in botany in Tel Aviv University, actually was one of the six first professors of Tel Aviv University. In 1953, founded Tel Aviv University, which is now the biggest, one of the top world-class universities in Israel, three or four of those. He was a professor and he was my role model but not of everything. But in the area of learning, of studying, of doing research, he was my role model. I sought to him, “What does it mean to be a professor? What does it mean to do for living what you love?” He actually said several times that nobody took him up on it and that he will do the same job for half the pay. In some cases he even say for no pay, but I’m not sure how he’ll earn his living, okay? In some cases, he said, “I might even pay them to let me do it.”

Zvi Galil: I’m not that materialistic, but not as non-materialistic as he was. But I saw for him what a university professors that does teaching, which I love, and research which I love even more, do and found out that being a university professor is perhaps the best job that exist. Especially if you have tenure. The best job, because you’re doing what you love, okay? You are paid decent, not huge. It’s even better to than inherit say, some big fortune and being a nobody, there were so few life.

Zvi Galil: But it’s really, certainly one of them, but I believe it’s the best job somebody could have and he was the one… He didn’t say it but I kind of got it from him. He worked until his last day. He got the stroke in the office when he was doing research but then he was still alive for two or three years, but that’s what happened sometimes in the end of your life. He was my role model. Everything concerned, we study with research, with the level of study with the OSMCS and with devoting all your time. Not 7/24, wake up in the middle of the night and think about the problem.

Todd Zipper: Well, Zvi, thank you so much for your time and for speaking with me today. You’re a true innovator. Until next time, this has been An Educated Guest.

Zvi Galil: Thank you very much, Todd. I enjoyed it very much.

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