The recession left millions of working people around the world without work. The rising costs of higher education have made it impossible for many to return to school. Even jobs are slowly coming back, but more and more of them are asking you to learn new skills. Now you can get those much needed skills from the Ivy League Academy at no cost.
As you know I am a huge fan of open source software. A newcomer to the open source community is Open University Education (OUE). I’m not talking about five-minute insights, where the goal is to sell you on a career in writing. These are full college courses taught by Ivy League college professors. Many courses are not only free but include course materials such as books at no cost.
Among the numerous top ten designated universities currently participating in the OUE community are M.I.T., Stanford University, UC Berkeley. , UC Irvine, Oxford, Harvard, Yale, and Notre Dome to name a few. YES and there is no cost to you.
There are several ways to get these courses from iTunes. Apple has a new section in the iTunes store called iTunes II you can iPod. Or you can sign up for the full course online. At the end of this article I will give you a list of links where you can sign up directly at the university of your choice. In this article I’m researching a new crop of OUE organizations. They do not run the academies themselves, but professors who have left their own resources to offer the same courses to you, free of charge.
One such organization is Udacity. Udacity (http://www.udacity.com) offers courses in Computer Science. Their first step is to create a search engine. The course is designed to teach people with no programming experience how to create a search from the ground up, using Python. Python is a programming language. They also offer courses in cryptography, robotics and car programming. What a wonder he teaches these ways. Professor David Evans, University of Virginia, and Professor Sebastian Thrun, Sanford University, teach a course on machine building. Peter Norvig, director of research at Google Inc., teaches Computer programming. Prior to working at Google, Mr. Norvigius focused on the computing Science Division at NASA Ames Research Center.
The best part of Udacity is the course. Each lesson is recited and studied one section per week. Each week’s lesson is fully interactive. You are the quizzes, and invert the tests that are passable. These courses are full college degrees.
If you’re interested in math, Harvard offers Abstract Algebra. Yale offers courses in Economics, Physics, and Biomedical Engineering to name a few. Stanford University is available from iTunes U and offers 13 courses now. If you want to advance your knowledge in the field of business, then UC Irvine may be what you are looking for. UC Irvine offers nine (9) courses in Business Management. UC Irvine also offers courses in Law, Education, Physical Science and more. You can also study for a secondary certificate in math and science. You can also view lectures from UC Irvine Law School.
If you are interested in obtaining an undergraduate degree, perhaps the University of the People is for you. The University of the People is open to anyone in the world, just like the other institutions I mentioned. Free courses, but with a large price. The farm fee is based on living, and ranges from $10.00 to $50.00. They offer Associate of Science (A.S.) and Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degrees in Computer Science, A.S. and B.S. degree in Business Administration. It offers Masters of Business Administration (M.B.A.) degrees from undergraduate to graduate. They are not approved at this time. Course materials are free.
If you want to home school your children or give them a little extra help, Khan Academy might be for you. They offer over 3,000 video lectures. covers K. – 12 math, science, economics and history courses. If you can work with “Old Math,” Khan Academy’s help will explain “New Math” to your child. Its resources are completely free.
Now you can get top quality education for free. Even if you don’t get your degree, you can still improve your resume/CV. Face it, many of our old friends will never come back. But you can be prepared for what new jobs emerge and at minimal cost to you. Knowledge is power and the highest universities are freely given by you.
It will lead to OUE sites:
Harvard University – http://www.extension.harvard.edu/open-learning-initiative
Yale – http://oyc.yale.edu/
Stanford University – http://itunes.stanford.edu/
UC Irvine – http://ocw.uci.edu/SpecialIndex.aspx
UdaCity – http://www.udacity.com
University of the People – http://www.uopeople.org/
Khan Academy – http://www.khanacademy.org/
