“I feel like what happens is everyone goes to work, they go to a bar, and then they go home and go to sleep,” says lifelong learner Jonathan Soma. “There has to be something more.” That’s why he and Jen Messier founded Brooklyn Brainery, an education center in the heart of the borough’s Carroll Gardens neighborhood. The Brainery hosts classes for people who want to learn something new, but don’t want to commit to an expensive, semester-long course. Students sign up to take affordable classes, taught by other members of the community. Subjects range from DNA to New York City Subways to foreign alphabets to Creative Writing about Pie. “And no one goes broke in the process,” says Soma.