MIT OpenCourseWare
A friend of mine is going to Japan and was asking me if I knew of a quick study guide, to develop his tourist language skills. Two things popped into my head: Rosetta Stone (they have a free trial for every language), and MIT’s OpenCourseWare (though I had yet to really explore what OCW had to offer, I offered him the idea and told him what I knew about it so far).
I first heard about OCW on NPR. The story reported on how MIT wanted to provide its course offerings to the rest of the world for free, as part of a community outreach program. Several students were upset because they didn’t like the idea of sharing their expensive education with the rest of the world. Other students put forth the argument that by giving the courses out to the rest of the world, the worldwide level of flourishing would increase, thereby increasing the individual’s ability to flourish. On the OCW site, you can read their guiding principal:
MIT is committed to advancing education and discovery through knowledge open to everyone.
It is a generous thing to do, and so far I am amazed by the course offerings. There is so much information available – it’s overwhelming. I’ve looked at several different Foreign Language, Pre-Law, and Computer Science classes. If you’re a do-it-yourself learner, I highly recommend looking into OCW. While sites like OED and Wikipedia offer tons of information, OCW actually helps you learn the subject matter in an efficient manner. If you really want to become an expert on a subject area, OCW is a great tool to get you there.
