"Use incarceration as a reset for self-education Malcolm X entered prison at age 20 as a cocaine-using career criminal and emerged seven years later as a transformed, deeply literate man — largely because he happened to be placed in MCI Norfolk in Massachusetts, a facility with extensive library connections to MIT and Harvard. He memorized the dictionary, read voraciously, and began corresponding with Elijah Muhammad, who wrote back personally, giving Malcolm the encouragement that reignited his intellectual drive. The hosts note that 'he remembered hey I'm a smart guy and I used to love academia and learning,' and turned prison into a self-directed university. The lesson: structured isolation, even forced, can be the catalyst to reclaim intellectual potential that circumstance has suppressed. Source: Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant, Stuff You Missed in History Class, Malcolm X"