Semester at MEA
For the big questions you don’t want to answer alone
Spend 12 weeks clarifying your purpose and navigating midlife changes with a global cohort that truly gets it.
Enroll by August 1 at 11:59pm PT
You missed out!
Semester at MEA runs September 1 to November 17
One guided 12-week online semester with weekly recorded modules and live events.
Two MEA programs: Cultivating Purpose Online + Navigating Transitions Online.
Weekly live cohort sessions and video module content, lifetime access to all recordings, and a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Enroll now for $995 and save $595 compared with taking both programs separately.
Find your anchor before you navigate what's next.
What form should my next decade take?
The answer may feel close, but not clear enough to act on. You’re ready for a new direction, but you don’t want to make a rushed decision just to relieve the pressure.
For some people, that pressure comes from change. Retirement, divorce, grief, health changes, or an empty nest has shifted the ground under your feet.
For others, nothing dramatic has happened. Life may still look good from the outside, but inside, the questions are getting harder to ignore.
What do you want your life to be shaped by now?
What is this change asking of you?
What still gives you energy?
What have you outgrown?
Semester at MEA begins there: with purpose, then transition. First, you clarify what you want the next chapter to be shaped by. Then, you learn how to move through the change already underway.
These courses have been life-changing. They have definitely changed me in a way that nothing else has before.
- Amy Treff, Cultivating Purpose & Navigating Transitions Alumni
When purpose and change come knocking at once
That's why Semester at MEA takes you through purpose before transitions, one step setting up the next, inside a guided learning community.
How the semester works.
Semester at MEA brings two guided online programs together in one 12-week fall sequence.
You begin with Cultivating Purpose Online.
For six weeks, you’ll examine the parts of your life that still feel alive, the gifts you want to use, the stories you may have outgrown, and the values you want to guide the years ahead.
Then you continue into Navigating Transitions Online.
For the next six weeks, you’ll work with the changes already moving through your life, including work, retirement, caregiving, empty nest, grief, health changes, relationship shifts, or identity questions that surface when a role begins to change.
Throughout the semester, you’ll have live weekly events, recordings, reflection prompts, course materials, and the option of ongoing online connection between classes.
Live events
All live virtual sessions take place on Tuesdays from 8:00 to 9:30 am Pacific / 11:00 am to 12:30 pm Eastern.
The 12-week path
By the end of these 12 weeks, the goal is not to have your whole life figured out. It’s to walk into your next big questions with clearer language, practical tools, and people who understand the terrain.
Here's how the path gets you there.
Part 1: Cultivating Purpose Online
September 1 to October 6
In the first six weeks, you'll break the question of purpose into workable pieces: what you value, what you're good at, what still energizes you, what you've outgrown, and where your time and care may want to go next.
You'll work with MEA purpose tools including:
By the end of Cultivating Purpose, you'll have practical next steps tied to the contributions you want to make.
Part 2: Navigating Transitions Online
October 13 to November 17
In the second six weeks, the focus shifts to the changes already moving through your life.
You’ll work with MEA transition tools including:
By the end of Navigating Transitions Online, you’ll have a clearer map for the transition you’re in now and tools to return to when life changes again.
All semester
You'll have weekly live sessions, recordings, reflection prompts, course materials, and the option of ongoing online connection between classes.
The cohort is part of the curriculum.
Most online courses hand you a login and leave you to figure it out solo.
Semester at MEA is different – it’s built entirely around live, human conversation.
Each week, you’ll have the option to join Kari Cardinale and a global cohort of peers navigating their own big questions. You'll meet people rethinking their careers, adjusting to an empty nest, or caring for aging parents.
There’s a profound relief in hearing the questions you’ve been carrying privately spoken out loud by someone else. Figuring out your next steps stops feeling like a puzzle you have to solve by yourself.
To keep you anchored, we return to the same steady rhythm every Tuesday for 90 minutes. You'll get guided reflection, practical tools, and honest conversations with people who truly get it.
And if life gets in the way? Everything is recorded, and you have lifetime access.
What begins to shift
This semester is not about forcing a clean answer before you’re ready. It’s about giving shape to questions that may have felt too large to hold alone.
By the end of 12 weeks, you’ll have:
Words from people who've taken these programs.
I came to MEA with a big question. I was hungry for an answer. What form should my next decade take?
Lynn Young
It gave me the opportunity to create new ideas and visions for my next chapter, and new supportive friends.
Greg Turner
I’m in the fire and knew I needed help and believe me, this course has been a lifeline. So grateful.
Eric Bolton
I had no idea that so many people feel this way at my age. It’s really helped me understand what I’m grappling with and how normal it is.
Amy Reardon
This turned out to be SO much more than what I expected at the start!
Emory Petrack
These courses have been life-changing. They have changed me in a way that nothing else has before.
Amy Treff
Guided by experts who know this territory.
Semester at MEA is led by Kari Cardinale, MEA Partner and Chief Content Officer, whose work sits at the center of MEA’s online learning experience.
Kari has spent nearly three decades helping people move through meaningful life transitions, build community, and turn reflection into something useful in daily life.
She has developed MEA’s online programs, worked with hundreds of thought leaders in longevity and wisdom, and guided thousands of midlifers through conversations about purpose, change, aging, identity, and what comes next.
Each week, Kari helps you take the teaching and apply it to the questions you’re living.
The minds behind both programs.
Semester at MEA pairs two kinds of support:
- 1Teaching from respected voices in purpose, transition, longevity, and wisdom.
- 2And live guidance that helps you put those ideas to work in your own life.
- 3Across the semester, you’ll learn from MEA faculty and thought leaders including:
Chip Conley
Founder of MEA and New York Times bestselling author
Arthur C. Brooks
New York Times bestselling author of From Strength to Strength
Bruce Feiler
New York Times bestselling author of Life Is in the Transitions
Barbara Waxman
Gerontologist, executive coach, and author of Middlescence
Richard Leider
Author of The Power of Purpose and pioneer of purpose coaching
Mark Nepo
Poet and author of The Book of Awakening
Lori Schwanbeck
Leadership coach, therapist, and mindfulness teacher
Janis Nakano Spivak
Founder of Crush and longtime creative mentor
Together, they bring the research, stories, and practical tools behind the two questions at the center of this semester:
What gives life meaning now?
And how do we move through change with more wisdom?
Join Semester at MEA
When you enroll in Semester at MEA, you get both guided online programs in one connected 12-week sequence.
Your semester includes:
Semester tuition
$1295 $995 until August 1st
Regular combined tuition for both programs: $1,590
You save $595 when you enroll in the full semester instead of purchasing both programs separately.
Join us from September 1 to November 17, 2026
Our Guarantee
A 12-week semester is a real investment of your time, attention, and money.
So we want you to have room to begin.
Enroll in Semester at MEA, join the first sessions, explore the course materials, and get a feel for the weekly rhythm. If it’s not the right fit, let us know within 14 days of the semester start and we’ll refund your full tuition.
Frequently asked questions
Semester at MEA combines two guided MEA online programs: Cultivating Purpose Online and Navigating Transitions Online. You’ll move through them as one connected 12-week sequence, starting with purpose and continuing into transitions.
The full semester gives you the complete arc in one sequence, with special bundle pricing. It also gives you more time inside the MEA learning rhythm, with weekly live sessions, guided reflection, practical tools, and ongoing connection with people who are moving through the same 12-week experience.
Yes. MEA has a truly global community, and many of our online participants join from outside North America.
Live sessions happen at set times each week, and you’ll also receive weekly video modules you can watch whenever it works for you. Together, they make it easy to experience MEA’s teachings and community from the comfort and convenience of home, wherever you live in the world.
Semester at MEA begins September 1 with Cultivating Purpose Online and continues into Navigating Transitions Online, ending November 17.
You’ll have lifetime access to the recordings, so you can watch any session you miss and return to the material later.
The live sessions are valuable because of the cohort conversation and real-time connection, but you won’t lose access to the teaching if life gets in the way.
Plan for one 90-minute live session each week, plus time for the course materials, reflection prompts, and exercises.
Most people will get the best experience by setting aside a few hours a week, but you don’t need to clear your calendar or treat this like going back to school full-time.
No. Semester at MEA includes recordings and course materials you can return to, but the experience is built around a weekly live rhythm.
You’ll move through the semester with faculty and a cohort, which helps keep the work active, personal, and connected to your real life.
No. Semester at MEA is an educational experience focused on purpose, transitions, reflection, community, and practical tools for this stage of life.
It can be deeply meaningful, but it is not therapy, medical care, or mental health treatment.
Semester at MEA is for people in midlife and beyond who are asking bigger questions about purpose, change, identity, work, family, time, aging, and what they want the years ahead to be shaped by.
You don’t need to be in crisis. You may be navigating a major transition, or you may simply feel that the life you’ve built is asking for fresh attention.
After you enroll, you’ll receive access instructions for the course portal, live session details, and the materials you’ll need to begin.
You’ll be able to join the first live sessions, start working through the course content, and connect with the semester cohort as the program begins.
You don't have to figure out what's next by yourself.
For 12 weeks, you'll have a place to return every Tuesday: skilled guides, real tools, and peers working through the same questions you are.
This is for the part of you that wants more than information to work through on your own. You want a cohort in it with you, and twelve weeks of structure that keeps you with the questions long enough to answer a few.
Starts September 1. Save $595 with our special semester pricing.