Best Free Educational Sites for College Age Students and Beyond
Sometimes we want to take classes that we just don’t have access to. Sometimes, when you’re in college, a class you’re interested in is scheduled at the same time as another class you have to take. Other times, financial aid won’t pay for that class. Then there are also people who can’t attend college whether it’s the cost of college or the time involved, they just can’t do it. Also there are people who have graduated and want to continue learning new things to help them in their careers. Finally there are people who just want to learn new things. Whatever the reason, there is a new way to learn new things and to do so at a college level.
MIT OpenCourseWare has published over 1400 classes that can be taken for free. For those of you not familiar with MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), they are a leading school in technological studies. Students and professors at MIT invent several of the products we use on a daily basis. Now you can experience the courses that have been taught at MIT, for free. MIT OpenCourseWare allows people to download courses that include assignments, readings, lecture notes, etc. All for free.
A few of the courses, I have been looking into taking, include German, Chinese, Creative Writing, and British Literature. German and Chinese are not offered at the college I am attending so it’s nice to have access to these courses through the MIT OpenCourseWare website. I have also wanted to take British Literature for quite some time, but there have always been other classes I needed to take at the same time.
Not only are the courses free, but you can learn on your own time. If you haven’t been able to take certain classes in college because they happen at the same time as other courses or you have work, you can now learn the information you want to learn while still being able to go to work or the other classes you need to take. Best of all, you will learn the same things students at MIT are learning without having to pay several hundred dollars for that one course.
MIT OpenCourseWare isn’t just useful for people who want to learn, but it is also useful for those who want teach. Professors all over the country can now look at the way professors at MIT are teaching classes and improve their own classes. Some courses even include the exams for the course, making it easy for professors to teach these classes at their own college/university.
By 2007, MIT OpenCourseWare hopes to over 1800 courses. They have courses for every taste imaginable. Whether it’s learning a new language, taking a philosophy course, a biology course, or even a health science course, you’ll be able to find a course that you’ll enjoy for free.
MIT OpenCourseWare isn’t the only website like this. There are a few other college/universities that are like MIT OpenCourseWare, but offer fewer courses.
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s OPENCOURSEWARE offers several health related courses.
Tufts OpenCourseWare offers courses dealing mostly in dentistry.
The Utah State University OpenCourseWare site is very similar to the MIT OpenCourseWare site, except they offer fewer courses.
These OpenCourseWare sites are a completely new way to experience education. First there was the option to take classes online and now not only can you take courses online, but you can take courses for free. I will be taking several of these courses while I’m also taking seven courses in college. I’ll be able to do this because I will be able to work at my own pace and it won’t matter if it takes me longer than normal because I’ll be doing this on my own.
