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Monster list of free online college courses

Posted Jun 05 2009, 05:58 PM by Karen Datko
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Just the other day, we were thinking it might be time to brush up on advanced complexity theory. And because we're expanding our vegetable garden, knowing more about soil mechanics might help. (Well, maybe not because we haven't taken the prerequisites.)

And in case we've forgotten about the particular charms and indignities of aging, we can take free courses on that too, courtesy of Johns Hopkins.

If you have knowledge gaps you want to fill, you can do it online -- for free. To help you find a particular topic, UniversitiesandColleges.org is building "The master list of free online college courses." Feel free to let them know of courses that don't yet appear.

We had no idea how engaging these free online courses could be until we checked out a few on this massive list.

For instance, a course available through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's OpenCourseWare caught our eye -- American Consumer Culture. Two of the books on the reading list can be downloaded for free from Project Gutenberg. Two others, including "Fast Food Nation," are likely available at the local library.

The related reading is intriguing as well, and includes the Museum of the Moving Image's "The Living Room Candidate: Presidential Campaign Commercials 1952-2008." That's right. You can watch hundreds of old political commercials, if you're so inclined. If not, move on to Game Theory, or take French online.

For better or worse, taking free online courses is not the same as enrolling in a class. Your study is self-directed and you won't earn credits toward a degree. But homework and exams are optional.

Costs can be involved but they're optional too. For instance, if we really had the background to understand the MIT course on advanced complexity theory (not even close), we could download the lecture notes for free but we'd also want to acquire the recommended books.

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Comments

 

This looks like some neat stuff.

I will look at this list and see what I can find. I'm especially interested in MIT's open course material.

It'd be nice to go back to school without incurring more student loans (I'm paying off undergrad and grad school).

Bill in Houston (Posted 06.08.09 1:12 PM ) Report Abuse

Is it worth going into debt just to say you went to college ? I have about 3 credits, but hundreds of hours of both class room and on the job training, paid for by my employer.

I made over a $100.000.00 last year with a trade & High School Diploma, plus a lot of common sense.  The 3 credits I did pay for, but were unrelated to my job, they were for my own pleasure.

Cheyenne1943

Cheyenne1943 (Posted 06.10.09 8:11 PM ) Report Abuse

I am interested in expanding my knowledge of many things. A whole course takes too much of my time. I am hoping to find courses that I can plug into and out of when I have the time.

DJPa (Posted 06.11.09 9:27 AM ) Report Abuse

Even if no accreditation is available, it's still a great way to gain new skills or gain a new appreciation of something I'd probably never devote the time/money otherwise. Also, if one finds something particularly interesting, it's not too hard to order current textbooks if one lives near a good library.

Also, these resources are useful even in college - I used the pre-calculus materials on free-ed.net to help me through those classes, and I still refer to them time to time, especially now that I'm studying for the GRE and found out that I forgot how to deal with adding and subtracting powers... ><

Wendy (Posted 06.11.09 4:58 PM ) Report Abuse

Thank you! I also don't have a whole lot of time currently to get more education that I'd like to have, but many more things I'd like to learn. This information is great. I periodically read the info on here and have learned alot. Things that have helped me to better my current situation I find myself with less hours at work, but not another decent job to be had to support myself & child. It's nice to have info to reference for ideas and/or help with the way the economy has gone recently. Thank you again!

Cian (Posted 07.28.09 9:45 PM ) Report Abuse

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