Reliance College

10/01/2026

"I think that if you're undecided and weighing the pros and cons, yes, it's a lot of work, but it's a lot of rewarding work."

Izzy Fugazotto came to the Great Connections Summer Seminar from Kansas City, Missouri. She had heard about Socratic seminars at school but had never been to one like this, and it was her dad who told her to go. Her advice to anyone still deciding: bite the bullet. The worst that can happen is you don't like it and you don't come back.

The work she means is the reading, and then a table of people your age who expect you to back up what you say. This year the topic was love, and she says it was eye-opening.

10/01/2026

"I would say that they should definitely attend. This will be a great experience. You get to make new friends, you get to think on your own, you get to explore Chicago if you haven't seen it before."

Alex came to the Great Connections Summer Seminar from Northern Virginia, partly to be independent in a city he had never been to. Outside class, his week was friends, restaurants and exploring the city. His one note for himself at the end: plan a little more ahead next time.

"Think on your own" is the annual Great Connections Seminar in four words. In every discussion, reason is the only authority, so each student works out an answer and has to defend it.

09/28/2026

09/22/2026

Nineteen students, ages 16 to 24, spent eight days in Chicago this summer arguing about what love is.

They came from Phoenix and Baton Rouge, and from Colombia, Armenia and Australia. They read Aristotle, Emily Dickinson, Mises, Tocqueville and Ortega y Gasset. They watched Jose Ferrer play Cyrano in black and white, and nobody made a sound for the whole film. Seven of them have already said they want to come back next summer and bring their friends.

This is how Reliance College teaches: read hard things, defend your reasoning out loud, and listen well enough to build on what somebody else just said.

More programs are coming, and the next Great Connections Summer Seminar is next summer. Follow along so you hear about them first. Full recap on the blog.

What nineteen students from five countries read, watched and argued about during a week of Socratic seminars at the 2026 Great Connections Summer Seminar in Chicago.

09/21/2026

Joshua Jones came up from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and he graduates in May 2027. He had never attended a program like this one. He wanted a week of people who would argue with him, and he wanted a look at the city he is thinking about moving to after graduation. He got both.

The Great Connections Seminar is a week in Chicago built on Socratic discussion. AI Proof U™ is the same Reliance College method, hard texts and a room of people who push back, and it is the part of your education no software can sit through for you.

Starts October 2. Applications close September 25. Apply today at the link in our comments section.

09/21/2026

In our program seminars, reason is the only authority. No person is the authority on the text, and each participant has to use logic and facts to support an opinion.

Swipe for eight rules a tutor uses to run a Socratic seminar at Reliance College, whether for the Great Connections Seminar or AI Proof U.

09/18/2026

Did you know MIT once required all students -- engineers included -- to study the Great Books?

Tech entrepreneur Ray Stata, founder of Analog Devices, says those philosophy courses shaped his thinking more than any engineering class.
They trained him to reason clearly, lead ethically, and build a billion-dollar company grounded in trust and responsibility.

Today, those humanities courses are gone.

But Stata believes we need them now more than ever -- especially in a world driven by AI and rapid innovation.

📺 Don’t miss Ray Stata’s full interview with Reliance College founder Marsha Familaro Enright—on why philosophy still matters in a tech-driven world.

In the 1950s, MIT student Ray Stata studied Western Civilization, reading Plato and Aristotle—training that shaped the founder of Analog Devices.

09/18/2026

One week left. Applications for AI Proof U™ close next Friday, September 25.

Pew Research Center found that 52% of U.S. workers are worried about how AI will be used at their job, and only 6% think it will mean more opportunity for them. What separates those two groups is judgment, and judgment is the one thing you cannot prompt your way into.

So the program puts you in a room. You open October 2 with a three-day intensive in Chicago, then six Tuesday night seminars online reading Aristotle, Adam Smith and Viktor Frankl, then back to Chicago on November 13 to present your own work publicly. Ten weeks, $2,500 with monthly payments, professional certificate at the end.

Anyone can generate an answer this year. Very few people can stand up and defend one. AI Proof U™ trains the second thing.

09/18/2026

"I am taking with me a lot of knowledge, and except for my personal usage, I will take all the experience to the country where I live and I will apply it on the students. I would like to organize such kinds of talks and seminars and to discuss great authors through this Socratic method and maybe to create great connections in my country."

Arpine Ayvazyan is a teacher. She came to Chicago from Hrazdan in Armenia, she has already been through university, and she has students of her own waiting at home, which makes her the one person in the room who had already run a classroom. She spent the week watching how the discussion was run as much as taking part in it.

So this clip is her plan. She wants to hold the same thing in Armenia: great authors, the Socratic method, her own students around the table.

The week she is describing is the Great Connections Seminar. AI Proof U™ is the same Reliance College method, the one she is taking home to run herself.

Starts October 2. Applications close September 25.

🔗 👉 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗔𝗜 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗳 𝗨™ 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝗻𝗼 𝗮𝗹𝗴𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗺 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲. 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗶𝗻 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗼𝘄.

09/11/2026

Hayek's argument against central planning was never about computing power. It was about the nature of knowledge itself.

The knowledge that actually matters in an economy is dispersed, tacit, and tied to particular circumstances. It lives in people, not in datasets.

That's why AI, for all its power, can't solve the knowledge problem. It can automate knowledge. It can't automate judgment.

About thirty economists sent him the same reply, according to Shruti Rajagopalan, who hosts the Mercatus Center’s Ideas of India podcast: Hayek never