The campus of Stanford University in Stanford, CA. USA TODAY file photo.This semester, students of all ages can attend lectures at Harvard, Stanford and MIT with nothing but a WiFi connection.
Some professors don’t assign reading; others give final exams.
And they all teach for free.
It’s part of a growing trend at universities worldwide: Posting popular, engaging lectures online for public consumption.
“People go into continuing education or lifelong learning for different reasons,” said Dan Colman, who directs Stanford’s Continuing Studies Program and edits an educational website, Open Culture. “Some people are looking to acquire job skills. [But] I think there are other people who are just really curious about the world.”
Stanford, for example, now publishes 13 of its undergraduate Computer Science and Electrical Engineering courses online as part of “Stanford Engineering Everywhere.” Anyone can enroll in any semester-long class, though some list recommended prerequisites. Every week, professors post lectures, homework assignments and quiz questions from their undergraduate classes. More than 35,000 students passed the department’s online final exams in Fall 2011.
Scott Young, a 23-year-old blogger taking online classes at MIT, finished a degree in business at the University of Manitoba in 2010 and now manages an online learning company. There, he publishes online courses, blog posts and e-books that help readers increase their productivity and maximize their learning skills.
“I think a lot of people realize that in today’s economy, in today’s world, knowledge is money. Knowledge is power,” Young said. “If you have skills that other people like, that gets you a better job, a better income, a better life.”
In October, Young challenged himself to finish MIT’s Computer Science curriculum – 33 courses, posted on the university’s OpenCourseWare server – in just 12 months. He passed his tenth final exam in December and is working on three more classes now. And while he misses in-person relationships with professors and his classmates, Young sees extraordinary benefits in online coursework.
“I think the total cost of my program will be about $1,000 – and for an MIT degree, that cost is way, way, way reduced. I don’t have to commute to campus every single day, so that frees up a lot of my time. I’m not really interested in sitting through long lectures and going to classes and stuff,” Young said. “I don’t think it’s right for everyone, but I think it is right for some people.”
Young will not receive a degree when he finishes his classes. Online students at Stanford only get a certificate. But because programming and blogging don’t require certification, he thinks the skills he gains will make the year worthwhile.
“My big goals have always been entrepreneurial, so I don’t really see [not earning a degree] as a restriction at all,” Young said. “I’ve spoken to a lot of people who’ve had very successful careers without having a degree.”
Harvard University, for example, posts series of video lectures about Classical Greece, abstract algebra and Chinese economics on its Open Learning Initiative. They don’t feature exams or notes like Stanford and MIT’s classes, but Colman believes the opportunity to learn is compelling enough.
“I think education and leisure time have always overlapped,” he said. “People have always read serious books in their leisure time and watched serious documentaries or movies. It’s just being delivered in a different format.”
“I think we’ve been taught that learning is something you have to endure in order to get something else that you want, and I think that sticks for a lot of people. But that doesn’t mean learning isn’t fun,” Young said. “Getting those insights about how the world works – that’s a rewarding experience. And I think we’re all fundamentally curious about how the world works.”
Colman doesn’t believe virtual education can replace a campus community. He thinks personal instruction, collaboration with classmates and exam-day pressure teach students just as much as fascinating lectures do.
“It’s great to give people access to all this information, but no one is saying this is a replacement for a formal education. At school, you learn to think,” Colman said. “Lectures are just one component of a much broader educational experience.”
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