Complex sentence: Starting at the age of 15, Whitehill taught himself Hebrew using self-help books and vinyl records, then found his first Hebrew conversational partner in a fellow Texas Tech student--an Israeli Arab.
Split into simpler sentences: Starting at the age of 15, Whitehill taught himself Hebrew using self-help books and vinyl records. While at Texas Tech, Whitehill found his first Hebrew conversational partner in a fellow student--an Israeli Arab.