Apple CEO Tim Cook Shares Which Classes In School Helped With His Success, Talks ConnectED

Apple CEO Tim Cook has always had a love for math while in school. But the head of one of America's most successful tech company in Silicon Valley said that he also took other subjects that fueled what he loves to do. This shaped his path as a leader in the tech industry, which he didn't dream would be possible before.

Speaking to a group of tech industry insiders at the Utah Tech Tour, Tim Cook said that he believes math was important in his formative years of schooling because he wanted to become an engineer. But while attending Auburn University in Alabama for his degree, he realized that math and engineering are not enough.

"Engineering should be applied to things that it should apply to. For that reason I took an ethics class in graduate school," he told the crowd, which you can watch in the video below. As he started working for Apple, Tim Cook also came to realize that technology and liberal arts had a significant synergy, hence this remains as his interest in learning.

"It's the intersection of those things that you can do really profound things for people that really enriches their lives," Tim Cook said about arts and music marrying with technology, CNBC reports. Someone from the crowd joked about calligraphy, which was crucial in the foundation of Apple during Steve Jobs' time. Funnily enough, Tim Cook didn't discount learning about this art as well and he said had an unbelievable personal lesson with a Chinese calligraphist before.

Meanwhile, Apple's partnership with the White House in the establishing of ConnectED has become one of the things that the Apple CEO is proud of. ConnectED's objective is to make technology available to every student in the United States so that it would aid in their learning, especially in today's trends.

"These kids are born in a digital world, and if they come to school and have an analog environment, it's not conducive to learning," Tim Cook said, according to ABC News. "It's not conducive to creativity," the CEO added.

At the moment over 113 public schools have already benefited from ConnectED's help, with kids improving on math and learning more in class with their free iPads from the initiative. Learn more about ConnectED in the video below.