MIT Offers Free Education to the Self-Motivated

Today, you do not have to enter the hallowed halls of MIT to have access to an MIT education. At the MIT OpenCourse website, interested learners are now but a click of a mouse away from the curriculum of 1,800 courses offered at tone of the premiere educational institutions in America.

That means access to 1,800 course syllabi, 15,000 lectures, 9,000 assignments and 900 exams. There are also 21 courses offering some form of audio/video components featuring more than 2,600 audio and video clips.

Warning, we are talking courses at MIT here, the run of the mill subjects such as Linear Algebra, Classical Mechanics, Algebraic Combinatorics, Circuits and Electrons and even Godzilla and the Bullet Train (Technology and Culture in Modern Japan). In fact the 20 most popular courses listed all involve science, math or economics.

The site sees more than one million visits a month with 49% of those signing on reporting themselves as self-learners. Another 32% refer to themselves as students and 16% as teachers.

Perhaps the greatest opportunity lies with high school teachers accessing such materials for their students. With many reports indicating that high school has become too much of a holding tank, the chance to access such levels of material should give teachers the opportunity to find materials to challenge even the best students. MIT indicates that 15,000 participants accessing the program monthly fit the criteria of high school student or instructor.

The site represents more than six years of committed work by the school and staff.