Introduction
As IT professionals, having an appetite for lifelong learning is extremely important, if not imperative to success in this industry. Living in the information age, we have access to so much information it can be overwhelming. For those of us that didn’t finish college or maybe wanted to pursue another degree more specific to our industry but didn’t have the time or the financial means. There have been options available for some time and some of them are free of charge for those interested in learning college-level material at their own pace.
Background
About a decade ago. MIT, Harvard, Stanford, and other large universities wanted to start offering their courses online. Their goal was to remove barriers of cost, location, and access to give everyone an opportunity to learn from their industry-leading programs.
Back in 2009, I started watching MIT Opencourseware, Stanford Engineering Everywhere, and UC-Berkeley Computer Science and Engineering tracks. I did a lot of this to continue on with my education that didn’t finish back when I first entered the Information Technology industry.
These courses not only include the recording of all lectures but give you access to the lesson plans that you can leverage to follow along.
Here comes edX
EdX was created in 2012 by MIT and Harvard as a massive open online course (MOOC) provider. It has grown into a nonprofit that has over 120 institutional partners providing college-level classes for Computer Science, Engineering, Business & Management, and many more. Most are free while other programs are pretty affordable for those that want to receive a certification, micro-bachelor, or micro-masters degree.
Can this replace the need for going to college?
The short answer is no. Attending college will give you access to professors and other resources that simply aren’t available from watching and reviewing course material online but it’s a great place to give you access to improve your knowledge.
In addition, some of the paid programs that are offered look great on a resume when they are backed by credible institutions like MIT.
Conclusion
There is no doubt that we live in the information age. With the growth of the internet and smartphones, we have the ability to provide most people with the means to educate themselves to be part of a more productive society.
In the future, I’ll put together a curriculum for a free Bachelor of Science in Computer Science degree. I think it would be fun to see how much of that could be done for free without stepping foot in a college. In a future post, I will outline a program that I started. It walks you through courses from various institutions and universities that can you the best education in the world.
