My first post about social entrepreneurs went live in May when I wrote about ROC USA. Today I’m so excited to write about Coursera; a social entrepreneurship company that provides free education from Ivy League professors to the masses!
What Did You Just Say?
Yes. Ivy League professors are providing free online courses to anyone who registers for them. Think Princeton, Stanford, and the University of Pennsylvania just to name a few. There’s courses on such a wide range of topics, too. Right now a few of them are high level mathematics, one on the new health care bill, gaming and how it applies to the non-VR world, health and nutrition, advanced sciences, literature, music, art, even finances and social networking. There’s a ton more, but I’ll let you explore yourself.
Will I Get College Credit?
No. You will not get college credit. These courses seem to be built more for those that want to expand their horizons or are looking for ways to get continuing education credits or training credit through their jobs. What you will get is a certificate from the professor stating your completion of the course which can then be passed on to your employer or other administrator that may be interested in the fact that you’ve been becoming more well-rounded. Some universities do not allow their professors to issue these certificates, for example: Princeton. Coursera does keep record of your participation, though, and can make those records available to any third-party you specify.
Which course would you/will you sign up for?
This is AWESOME, and I had no idea that these were even out there!.. One of the things that I miss the most about college is the fact that I was always feeding my brain and learning new things. I will definitely check out a few of these courses..
I know! I couldn’t believe it when I saw it. If I weren’t already bogged down by a full-time college schedule I’d be signed up for sure. Can’t wait till I’m out of school so I have the time to go back? lol
This is amazing. I just signed up for “Networks: Friends, Money, and Bytes”. Thanks so much for the link !!
Oh, awesome! I’m so glad you found something you liked! No prob!
Wow, that’s really cool! I’m putting their url on my favorites list. I definitely will be look at this more closely.
I just stopped by from SITS to say hello; hope you find time to do the same.
That’s the first thing I did, too! I’ll be over. 🙂
Also check out http://www.khanacademy.org/ I don’t think they provide any kind of certificates, but it’s another great place to learn stuff online. I wonder if we’ll ever see a day where you can actually get college credits via free online courses. It sure would make college more affordable.
That’s pretty amazing! I know there’s some opportunities out there for active duty military personnel in the states, but as for the general public, I’m not aware of any. Some schools, like Antioch, offer free tuition, but nothing online that I’m aware of.
This is so exciting. I wanted to write about this opportunity myself!!!
Go for it, Barb!
This is awesome — thanks! Bookmarking it now.
wow this is awesome
Xo Megan
I’ve heard of this project on NPR back in April – I think it’s an amazing opportunity!!! thank you for sharing!
This is great! I would never have known about this. You always find all this super-cool info. Thanks 🙂
I signed up for a class that begins next year. Looking forward to it…I hope I can do it as I am planning a women financial empowerment conference, too. I think I should be able to handle it 🙂
That’s great! I’m sure you’ll rock both of them 🙂
very cool and I’ve also just bookmarked the site. Although it has me remembering from my school days that the profs with the big reps were not always the best teachers……
I guess that is true sometimes. I’ve found that when I check out my professors on rate my prof, the ones who get bad ratings are usually my favorites…they’re the ones who are actually invested in the learning, but the students don’t want to put forth the effort and therefore rank them pretty low.