At the age of 24 I took a job at Princeton University. I was not fresh out of college, but I had not
yet had the desire to test myself with graduate school. Quite frequently though, I found myself
wondering what it would be like to sit in on a class or two at the prestigious school. Could I hack it with the 18 year olds with
the high IQs? What would it be like to learn about the ancient Greeks from some
of the highest ranked professors in the world? When I left Princeton a few
years ago to start a new job, one of my regrets was that I never took advantage
of my unique opportunity to audit a course, just to see what it was like to be
“Ivy League.”
Technology though, has
created a unique new trend in higher education that is creating exciting
opportunities for the general public to get this experience. And when I say general public, I mean anyone
that has access to an internet-connected computer and has a desire to learn
something new. These programs are
completely free, so even people with the tightest budgets can participate.
Coursera is a
program that was launched last year by two Stanford University computer
scientists. Currently, the website
partners with four American universities (Princeton University, Stanford
University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Pennsylvania) to
bring a free educational experience through a web-based learning
experience. In most cases, these are
video recordings of the actual lectures given to the regular students of the
respective universities that were then edited and redeveloped into an online
course format. Courses last anywhere
from six to twelve weeks. You will need
a certain amount of discipline to participate in these courses since they are
self-guided and you don’t have the access to the professor as you would in a
traditional classroom. However, they are
designed for mastery of the material so that if you do participate, you will
have a legitimate learning experience.
There are currently more than 45 available courses listed on the
Coursera website. A random selection of
titles includes A History of the World
since 1300, Single Variable Calculus, Computer Science 101, Introduction to
Finance, Introduction to Sociology, and Listening
to World Music.
There are other budding websites that, like Coursera, aim to
provide education to anyone who wants to learn.
Open Yale is a collection of over 40 video- recorded Yale University courses
ranging in 23 different subject areas. Udacity offers courses at the beginner to
advanced level in a range of different topics. Websites like Open Courseware Consortium and MIT Open Courseware (Massachusetts Institute of
Technology) provide access to materials, like lecture notes, used in actual
college courses to support a self-guided learning experience.
Of course, there are drawbacks to these courses. You do not receive official college
credits. In most cases you don’t even
receive a certificate of completion (the Udacity site is the only one that
states that they can provide one). You
would also not be able to complete more than a couple of courses in a given
subject. But if you have a strong
desire to learn about a topic, strictly for the sake of learning and your own
personal growth, these courses are perfect.
They appeal to a range of interests and some can even serve to improve
your skills at work. My graduate studies
are completely unrelated to my undergraduate degree, so I find these courses to
be great supporting resources in helping me to develop the necessary background
I need to excel in my master’s program.
I’m hoping to see the course listings continue to grow as the websites
and their goal of providing an educational experience to the masses becomes
more popular.
Roxanne Huertas
Abrianeme Aretias
