Cat Videos, Let’s Play videos, Vlogs, prank videos and remixes of basically everything.
This is the YouTube that most of us know. An impossible vortex of distraction and procrastination. But within the cyclone of chaos and videos of pandas sneezing is a ray of hope for those trying to cram for exams…. The Educational channels
Recommended Study Channels
Science
For those of you who want to delve into the complexities of our knowable reality YouTube has heaps of content for you.
Covering the sub-atomic to astrological is Minute Physics. A really fascinating minute-long explanation of really confusing and awe-inspiring scientific phenomenon.
General Summaries of science, from Biology to Chemistry to Ecology to Psychology, can be found at Crash Course. Hosted by Hank Green and John Green this brother duo covers A LOT of subjects. Hank does all the sciency-science stuff, while his brother covers the history-literature artsy stuff.
The Sci Show is also quite good for learning about science… but it tends towards the ‘Everday Scientific questions’ like ‘Does Alcohol kill braincells?’ and ‘Why Bees make honey’. It’s harder to legitimise watching these videos if you have a test coming up soon.
Arts Subjects
As stated before, Crash Course has you covered for History and Literature. John Green has three different history ‘seasons’ with one 42 episode long play list covering the whole of world history, a 48 long season covering US history and an ongoing collection on ‘impacts on Civilisation’, like money and disease. He has also done several two-part lessons on famous books, which is quite helpful if you haven’t read the book but need to do a summary it for class.
For all those media students out there look no further than Idea Channel. This PBS sponsored channel covers every and any connection one can make between pop-culture and theorists. Is Mario a product of surrealist art? Is Sherlock Holmes to blame for 50 Shades of Grey? Does the Internet have dialects? and is reality TV deconstructing our own fear / awareness of surveilance?
This channel also holds a rare YouTube phenomenon called, ‘A Good Comment Section’. Some people post some amazingly insightful stuff, that can sometimes make you feel intellectually intimidated.
Also for media students and gamers is PBS Game show. Which is pretty much the same as Idea Channel, but with video games
There’s also Extra Credit, which does a variety of subjects – from history to political discussions over net nutrality. They tend to centre around gaming and technological issues but they manage to cover other subjects too.
Math
Numberphile does some really interesting videos with mathy stuff. Questions about ‘how big infinity can get?’ and ‘How big is Graham’s number?’ (it also answers questions like ‘What is Graham’s number?’)
General Interest
The channel It’s Ok to be Smart does a bit of general interest facts about life which are really cool They cover a variety of topics, from physics to space to food scienc, Earth and biology. For some reason there a a few episodes devoted completely to sharks and shark facts
Ted Talks are – as a general rule of thumb – AMAZING. Really, you should all check some of these out. There are a diverse range of speakers with poetry readings, scientists, political spokespeople, psychologists, philosophers and theorists all crowded onto one site. Talking about subjects like redesigning humanity to world peace these talks are fascinating. They are however, likely distract you from your studying because they are that interesting.
