I love learning things. My favourite shows to watch invariably are located on the History Channel, Discovery or TLC. I’m a big fan of the How the Earth was Made series and that led to an interest in geology. I really wanted to study geology for myself. Working fulltime and the high cost of attending the classes necessary made it impractical. I want to study geology for myself, not for a career as a geologist or certification as a teacher. So I chose an unorthodox route to the knowledge.
The United States Department of Education states that the cost of attending even a state University has outpaced inflation by some 400%. It’s not a surprise then that many people looking to further their educations are choosing some rather unique approaches. In many cases an employer is more interested in the knowledge you have gained rather than how you obtained it or where. While in many cases the employer will pay for the education and even give you paid time off to get it, this is the exception rather than the rule. Many people are also like me, they want the knowledge for knowledge sake alone.
I was initially looking for an inexpensive distance education course in geology when I happened to find out about Open Courseware. Open Courseware is the hub of the open courses available at universities across the globe. They have links to major universities as well as schools you have probably never heard off. These schools are all involved with the open education for all philosophy. The schools involved list their available free courses. The course syllabus is available along with audio or videos of the lectures or printed transcripts. A book list is included as well. The schools are giving this information away for free. You don’t even have to register for an account. You can simply and freely download as many of the courses as you like and study the information on your own. Of course you are given no college credit for this but if you are merely looking to gain knowledge it’s a way to obtain it for free. You do need to purchase or rent the involved books but this can be done via an ereader for a much smaller fee than buying the physical books or even renting them. I found this to be a great way to further my study of geology for free. In the event I ever wanted credit for the information I could always submit the information to a school that gives portfolio credit or simply take a standardized test on the material. A passing grade gives you college credit. Test fees vary but none are over $50 which is far less than you would pay to actually take the class.
