We started in 1990 as The Teaching Company, known for creating The Great Courses, which provided college-level video courses on subjects such as history, science, and philosophy.
After 30 years and more than 20 million courses having been taken, we are excited to add new and unique content to our platform and expand to offer more experiences that fulfill the needs of all lifelong learners.
It all started when Tom Rollins, the founder of The Great Courses, was a law student at Harvard University. He was facing an important exam for which he wasn’t prepared.
Dreading the notoriously boring subject but knowing his success depended on understanding the material, Rollins obtained videotapes of 10 lectures by a noted authority on the subject. The tapes were unlike anything Rollins had experienced in his Harvard lecture halls. They were outrageously insightful, impressively thorough, and engagingly witty. Most important: They hammered home the concepts in a way that made the subject both accessible and interesting. They made learning not a chore to be accomplished but an adventure to be experienced. Tom went on to make an “A” in the course.
He never forgot the unique power of recorded lectures by a great teacher—and the way that a bright mind could ignite a passion for lifelong learning. And years later, in 1990, Rollins founded The Great Courses to share that unforgettable experience with the rest of the world.
Due to his law student experience, Rollins pursued his endeavor to ensure that The Great Courses would be taught by top college professors and leading experts in their fields, therefore, providing the highest quality of learning experiences available to the public. With this combined level of quality, The Great Courses was quickly embraced by the lifelong learning community as a trusted resource for continuing lifelong education.
Over the years, The Teaching Company grew beyond producing VHS and cassette tapes that were just focused on academic subjects and ventured into covering a range of subject categories, including science, math, economics, literature and language, history, religion and philosophy, fine arts, and music. As technology changed, The Teaching Company produced DVDs and CDs, while also further expanding to include better living, health and wellness, and how-to courses. With the advent of streaming technology, The Great Courses Plus (now rebranded into Wondrium) launched in 2015, giving our Great Courses audience a video-on-demand subscription option, allowing them to access as many courses as they wished, at any place, at any time, and at the convenience of their own schedule. Now, in 2021, the range of topics is expanding, once again, to include personal enrichment, hobbies and leisure, travel, and more.
We hope you are excited to take the next step in this journey with us.